


























































































































































































































































Copyright, 1909 and 1921, 

By D. C. Heath & Co. 

2 E 1 


©CU617671 


~VvO 


PREFACE 




nj • 


t/o 

Like its companion, A Brief English Lit era* 
ture , this book sets before the reader the most 
important names in each literary period. To show 
the extent of literary growth, a few lesser names 
also are given brief mention, and a list of names at 
the end of each period calls attention not only to 
the authors mentioned in the text, but to many 
others. 

The aim of the book is to be simple, orderly, 
and clear; to tell a few facts in such a way that 
there need be no confusion in the mind of the 
reader. While it is hoped that the subject-matter 
of the book has intrinsic value, a knowledge of 
literature obviously comes only from study of the 
literature itself; therefore, primarily the book will 
have its greatest usefulness when taken as a guide. 
With this thought in view, suggestions for reading, 
intended mainly for students in secondary schools, 
are given at the ends of the chapters. More mature 
minds will naturally read the books mentioned in 
the text. 


ABBY WILLIS HOWES. 


























































































CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 

The Colonial Period. 

CHAPTER II 

The Revolutionary Period: from the Stamp Act, 
1765, to 1800; or from Franklin to Irving . 

CHAPTER III 

The Nineteenth Century: General Character¬ 
istics; Characteristics of the Literature . 

CHAPTER IV 

The First Prominent Writers of the New Re¬ 
public .. 


CHAPTER V 

The New England Writers . 

CHAPTER VI 

Poets outside of New England 

CHAPTER VII 

vii 


PAGE 

I 

21 

32 

36 

57 

93 


The Orators 


105 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

The Historians .in 

CHAPTER IX 

Later Writers.123 

Index.141 





PORTRAITS 


Jonathan Edwards . 





FACING 

PAGE 

12 

Benjamin Franklin . 






22 

Washington Irving . 






38 

William Cullen Bryant . 






46 

Edgar Allan Poe . 






52 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 





60 

Ralph Waldo Emerson . 






66 

Nathaniel Hawthorne . 






74 

John Greenleaf Whittier 






80 

James Russell Lowell 






86 

Walt Whitman 






96 

Daniel Webster 






106 

Francis Parkman 






116 

Edmund Clarence Stedman 






126 


ix 








A BRIEF AMERICAN 
LITERATURE 


CHAPTER I 
THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
EVENTS 1607-1765 


Settlement of Jamestown, 1607. 
Landing of Pilgrims at Plymouth, 

1620. 

New York settled by the Dutch, 

1621. 

Massachusetts Bay Colony found¬ 
ed, 1630. 

Harvard College founded, 1636. 
Maryland founded, 1634. 

First settlement in Connecticut, 
1635 - 

Providence founded, 1636. 

Swedes settle Delaware, 1638. 

First printing press in America, 
1639. 

English seize New York, 1664. 
Bacon's Rebellion, 1676. 

King Philip’s War, 1675-1678. 


Charleston, South Carolina, found¬ 
ed, 1680. 

Pennsylvania settled, 1681. 

Salem witchcraft, 1692. 

William and Mary College, Vir¬ 
ginia, founded, 1693. 

Yale University, Connecticut, 
founded, 1701. 

Georgia settled, 1733. 

Charter granted to Princeton Uni¬ 
versity, 1746. 

University of Pennsylvania found¬ 
ed, 1755. 

Wars between English and French 
colonists: King William’s War, 
1689-1697; Queen Anne’s War, 
1702-1713; King George’s War, 
1744-1748; French and Indian 
War, 1754-1763. 


General Characteristics. — The colonial history 
of America dates from the first English settlement 
in 1607 to the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765. 
Besides being a period of exploration and adven¬ 
ture, it was a time of struggle, in many cases for 


1 


2 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


bare existence. Watched in field and forest by 
hostile Indians, glared at by wild beasts, and 
haunted ghostlike by famine and fever, the life of 
our first settlers was one of continual warfare. 
Much work, also, had to be done. Trees must be 
felled, houses built, land cultivated. Then came 
the struggles with the mother country for political 
and commercial rights; wars with the French and 
the Indians. In the Northern colonies, too, reli¬ 
gion lifted up her hand in conflict. Striving to 
keep their doctrines uncontaminated by outside 
influence, the Puritans, with warning voice, drove 
out Quakers and Baptists, hanged supposed 
witches, and fearlessly denounced all who differed 
from them. 

As literature is the written record of the thoughts 
and feelings of a people, colonial literature consists 
chiefly of accounts of explorations, histories of do¬ 
ings in the colonies, diaries, and religious works. 
We find in it little play of the imagination, and 
little that can be called great or even good as 
literature. In style it is like the literature of Eng¬ 
land at the time when the colonists left there. In 
the seventeenth century, the period of the greatest 
colonial emigration, the English writers lacked 
poetic taste, and were given to a prose style in 
which long complex sentences predominated; so 
we find the first American writers unpoetic inverse 
and tedious in prose. The eighteenth century in 
England, however, produced writers of greater 
simplicity and grace of style, and as the colonists 


THE COLONIAL PERIOD 


3 


still looked to England for their model, the last 
writers of this period show a corresponding im¬ 
provement. But colonial literature suffered from 
its crude surroundings, and from lack of contact 
with the culture of England which in these years 
produced Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Addison. 
In the main it is uninteresting, and seldom read 
except by students. 

Literature in the South. — As the first colony 
was established in the South, there we find our 
first writers. The very first was Captain John 
Smith (1579-1631), who came to Jamestown with 
the settlers of 1607 and did much for the strug¬ 
gling colonists. His life previous to this time had 
been full of marvelous adventures in many lands, 
and these experiences helped him greatly in regu¬ 
lating the affairs of the Virginians, in dealing with 
the Indians, and in making fearless expeditions 
into the great forests and up the unknown rivers. 
An account of what happened in these early days 
in the New World he published in London (1608) 
in a book called A True Relation of Virginia. 
Later, as a result of his voyages, he published A 
Description of New England and other works. 
His General History of Virginia (1624) contains 
the romance of Pocahontas. After describing the 
method of his capture, Smith tells of being brought 
before the Indian Emperor Powhatan, who — 

“ Before a fire upon a seat like a bedstead, sat covered with 
a great robe, made of rarowcum [raccoon] skins, and all the 
tails hanging by. On either hand did sit a young wench of 


4 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


sixteen or eighteen years, and along on each side the house, 
two rows of men, and behind them as many women, with all 
their heads and shoulders painted red: many of their heads 
bedecked with the white down of birds; but every one with 
something : and a great chain of white beads about their necks. 

u At his [Smith’s] entrance before the king, all the people 
gave a great shout. The Queen of Appamatuck was appointed 
to bring him water to wash his hands, another brought him a 
bunch of feathers, instead of a towel, to dry them : having 
feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a 
long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great 
stones were brought before Powhatan : then as many as could 
laid hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his 
head, and being ready with their clubs, to beat out his brains, 
Pocahontas, the King’s dearest daughter, when no entreaty 
could prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon 
his to save him from death: whereat the Emperor was con¬ 
tented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, 
beads, and copper; for they thought him as well of all occu¬ 
pations as themselves.” 

William Strachey, a second colonial writer of the 
South, told in 1610 of the shipwreck which befell 
him when he came to Virginia. This account is, 
from some points of view, the best prose in the 
whole colonial period. With true poetic touches 
Strachey pictures the misery of all on shipboard 
without food for three days. He tells of the weird 
light which for hours danced about the masts and 
then suddenly disappeared, and of the ship’s run¬ 
ning ashore at last on the Islands of Bermuda, 
which he says were given over “ to devils and 
wicked spirits.” 

This prose work is worthy of special notice not 
only because of its picturesque passages, but be- 


LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 


5 


cause it is supposed that Shakespeare read it and 
from it took suggestions for his play The Tempest. 
In the play we have a storm in the opening scene; 
and Ariel, the spirit who obeys the commands of 
the magician Prospero, says : — 

“ I boarded the king’s ship ; now on the beak, 

Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 

I flamed amazement: sometimes I’d divide 
And burn in many places; on the top-mast, 

The yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly, 

Then meet and join : Jove’s lightnings, the precursors 
O’ the dreadful thunder-claps more momentary 
And sight-out-running were not.” 

And Ariel further recounts that Ferdinand, the 
king’s son, as he leaped into the waters of what 
Shakespeare calls the “ still-vexed Bermoothes,” 
cried, — 

“ Hell is empty 
And all the devils are here.” 

Other Southern Colonists wrote accounts of ex¬ 
plorations and histories of political events, but not 
much writing was done in the South. The lead¬ 
ing colonists became men of wealth and leisure 
who settled contentedly on their large plantations 
and enjoyed a life of fox hunting and hospitality. 
As they lived far apart, it was impossible to estab¬ 
lish common schools. They sent their children to 
England when they wished them well educated, 
and bought English books for their own reading. 
For thirty-eight years the Virginians were under 
the rule of Governor Berkeley, who said : “ I thank 
God there are no free schools nor printing, and I 


6 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


hope we shall not have them these hundred years, 
for learning has brought disobedience into the 
world, and printing has divulged them and libels 
against the best governments.” Under such con¬ 
ditions there was very little intellectual stimulus, 
and consequently literature did not flourish in the 
South. 

Literature in the North was more abundant than 
in the South because of the different character and 
aim of the settlers. They were first of all thinkers. 
Many of them had left England, not for material 
gain, but because they were dissatisfied with both 
religious and political conditions. They regarded 
truth and the well-being of their souls more highly 
than wealth or bodily comfort. They lived in 
communities where intellect could play upon intel¬ 
lect, where it was easy to exchange books, easy to 
establish schools. A great proportion of these 
Northern colonists were graduates of the English 
universities, and brought with them a love for 
scholarship and writing. A printing press was 
set up in 1639. Public instruction was compul¬ 
sory before 1650. Among such people one would 
naturally expect literature, and literature of a 
deeply religious nature. 

The colonial governors were the first writers. 
Governor Bradford wrote The History of Plymouth 
Plantation , and Governor John Winthrop of Mas¬ 
sachusetts Bay, The History of New England . 
The clergymen, however, were the writers of spe¬ 
cial prominence. They were often men of mark, 


LITERATURE IN THE NORTH 


7 


born in England, and banished from the parishes 
of the mother country because of nonconformity 
to established religious ideas. They wrote many 
books in explanation of their own beliefs and in 
contradiction of those of others. Furthermore, 
they did much toward establishing schools and 
helping education. One of them, the Reverend 
John Harvard, though not a writer of prominence, 
founded (1636) the college which bears his name; 
three others — Nathaniel Ward, Cotton Mather, 
and Jonathan Edwards — deserve particular men¬ 
tion for their literary work. 

Nathaniel Ward (1579-1653) was a graduate of 
Cambridge University, who had practiced law, 
traveled several years on the Continent, and when 
finally settled as preacher in an English parish 
had been ejected because his religious views did 
not suit his bishop. He came to Massachusetts 
and preached for a time at Agawam, since named 
Ipswich. His troubles seem to have made him 
out of sorts with everything and everybody, and 
he expressed his views in a satire called The Simple 
Cobbler of Agawam. In this book Ward denounced 
various matters which displeased him — religious 
toleration, the state of contemporary English poli¬ 
tics, and the vanities of womankind. Of the latter 
he said: — 

“It is a more common than convenient saying that nine 
tailors make a man; it were well if nineteen could make a 
woman to her mind.” 

And again he says: “ I honor the woman that 


8 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


can honor herself with her attire.” But he adds 
that when a woman inquires “ what dress the queen 
is in this week,” and what is the “ fashion of the 
court,” and then hastens to change her own attire— 

“ I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifler, the product 
of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of Nothing, fitter to be 
kicked, if she were of a kickable substance, than either honored 
or humored.” 

These brief extracts serve to show the biting 
manner in which Ward wrote. His indignation 
burst forth with equal fury at the thought that 
New England was getting in old England the 
reputation of not ridding herself of people who 
held alarming religious beliefs. After assuring 
the world of the utter falseness of this rumor, he 
states what was probably the New England posi¬ 
tion in regard to toleration : — 

“He that is willing to tolerate any religion or discrepant 
way of religion, besides his own, unless it be in matters merely 
indifferent, either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it.” 

“ That state that will give liberty of conscience in matters 
of religion, must give liberty of conscience and conversation in 
their moral laws, or else the fiddle will be out of tune, and 
some of the strings crack.” 

The style of this book is marred by puns, Latin 
quotations, and invented words which have no 
sensible meaning; yet the independence, the en¬ 
thusiasm, the humor, and the rough eloquence of 
the work as a whole made it very popular in its 
own day. Its correct representation of the spirit 
of the age in which it was written, makes it still 
worth reading. 


COTTON MATHER 


9 


Cotton Mather (1663-1728), born in Boston, was 
the grandson of the celebrated pulpit orator, John 
Cotton, and son of Increase Mather, preacher and 
president of Harvard College. He was graduated 
from Harvard College at the age of fifteen, lived 
all his life in Boston, and may be considered typi¬ 
cal of the best culture and religious thought of the 
time. At seventeen he was appointed associate 
pastor of the North Church, where his father 
preached. His life was one of systematic indus¬ 
try, and as a result he accomplished an amount of 
work that is almost incredible. He published 
nearly four hundred books, besides being a consci¬ 
entious pastor and an enthusiastic philanthropist, 
working for the suppression of drunkenness, estab¬ 
lishing a school at his own cost for the education 
of negroes, and advocating vaccination for smallpox 
in the face of scoffing sneers. 

His most famous work is the Magnalia Christi 
Americana — The Great Doings of Christ in 
America — written to show that the beliefs and 
the governments of the Puritans had produced 
good results. The book begins with the settle¬ 
ment of New England in 1620, and details at some 
length the lives of those early governors and magis¬ 
trates who seemed especially chosen by God. It 
gives us also a picture of the lives and spiritual 
experiences of the colonial clergy; the history of 
the first sixty years of Harvard College; the doc¬ 
trines of the New England churches; and an ac¬ 
count of the mercies and judgments of God upon 


io AMERICAN LITERATURE 

the struggling colonists. It is no wonder that the 
latter subject, as he treats it, is full of superstition, 
when we remember that Mather considered the 
New Englanders “a people of God settled in those 
which were once the devil’s territories.” 

The style of the Magnalia seems to us very 
queer. The sentences are long and complex like 
those of the English writers, Hooker, Fuller, and 
Milton, half a century before. The work abounds 
in learned expressions and quotations from Latin 
and Greek authors. Moreover, there is a great 
tendency to punning, which makes some of the 
most serious passages appear to the modern reader 
in the light of humor. For instance, in speaking 
of Mr. Ralph Partridge who came from England 
to preach in the colony of Plymouth, Mather re¬ 
fers to him as if he were a bird, and calls him — 

“ A hunted partridge . . . who for no fault but the delicacy 
of his good spirit, being distressed by the ecclesiastical setters, 
had no defense, neither of beak nor claw, but a flight over the 
ocean. The place where he took covert was the colony of 
Plymouth, and the town of Duxbury in that colony.” 

Continuing, Mather tells us that many ministers 
left the colony of Plymouth on account of insuf¬ 
ficient support from their congregations, but that 
Mr. Partridge was — 

“so afraid of being anything that looked like a bird wan¬ 
dering from his nest, that he remained with his poor people 
till he took wing to become a bird of paradise, along with the 
winged seraphim of heaven.” 


JONATHAN EDWARDS 


II 


But with all his oddities Mather often shows 
dignity of style and sometimes beauty. In his 
chapter on “The Exquisite Charity of Master 
John Eliot ” these qualities are shown. He says:— 

“ He that will write of Eliot must write of charity, or say 
nothing. His charity was a star of the first magnitude in the 
bright constellation of his vertues, and the rays of it were 
wonderfully various and extensive. 

“ His liberality to pious uses, whether publick or private, 
'went much beyond the proportions of his little estate in the 
world. Many hundreds of pounds did he freely bestow upon 
the poor; and he would, with a very forcible importunity, 
press his neighbors to join with him in such beneficences. . . . 
He did not put off his charity to be put in his last will, as 
many who therein shew that their charity is against their will; 
but he was his own administrator ; he made his own hands 
his executors, and his own eyes his overseers. It has been 
remarked that liberal men are often long-lived men; so do 
they after many days find the bread with which they have 
been willing to keep other men alive.” 

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), “remarkable 
for the beauty of his face and person . . . won¬ 
derful in his purity of soul and his simple devotion 
to truth,” was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, 
where his father was for sixty-four years pastor of 
the Congregational church. From his father he 
received the instruction in Greek, Latin, and He¬ 
brew which fitted him to enter Yale College at 
the age of thirteen. After he was graduated he 
was tutor for a while at Yale, and then accepted a 
pastorate at Northampton, Massachusetts, which 
he held for twenty-four years. During this time 
his preaching started a great religious revival. 


12 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


His interpretation of some religious doctrines, how¬ 
ever, was too severe for the greater part of his 
church, and he was eventually obliged to leave 
Northampton. He then went to Stockbridge, 
farther west in Massachusetts, where he was pas¬ 
tor of a church, and also missionary to a tribe of 
Indians. In 1758 he was made president of the 
College of New Jersey (Princeton), but he died in 
less than five weeks after accepting the position. , 

While living at Stockbridge, Edwards wrote the 
book which has stamped him as one of the great¬ 
est thinkers of any age. It is called An Inquiry 
into the Freedom of the Will. In this book he 
tried to show how far people can choose for them¬ 
selves, and how far God governs their will and 
choice. The following quotation is from that part 
of the treatise where he questions whether any 
event or volition can come to pass without a cause. 
It shows his close reasoning, and the simple, pre¬ 
cise style of his writing. 

“ I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a Cause. 
What is self-existent must be from eternity, and must be un¬ 
changeable ; but as to all things that begin to be, they are not 
self-existent, and therefore must have some foundation of their 
existence without themselves; that whatsoever begins to be 
which before was not, must have a Cause why it then begins 
to exist, seems to be the first dictate of the common and natu¬ 
ral sense which God hath implanted in the minds of all man¬ 
kind, and the main foundation of all our reasoning about the 
existence of things, past, present, or to come. 

“And this dictate of common sense equally respects sub¬ 
stances and modes, or things and the manner and circum- 


nu u n u a 



























































































































































JUDGE SAMUEL SEWALL 


13 


stances of things. Thus, if we see a body which has hitherto 
been at rest, start out of a state of rest, and begin to move, we 
do as naturally and necessarily suppose there is some Cause 
necessary in their own nature, and so not self-existent, and 
therefore must have a Cause. . . . 

“ So that it is indeed as repugnant to reason, to suppose 
that an act of the Will should come into existence without a 
Cause, as to suppose the human soul, or an angel, or the globe 
of the earth, or the whole universe, should come into existence 
without a Cause.” 

Edwards wrote a great deal on various religious 
subjects, but the work on the freedom of the will 
is his greatest. It is mainly original, and is most 
remarkable when we consider that it was written 
in the wilderness, where the author was out of 
communication with learned men. It came not as 
a sudden inspiration, however, but was the result 
of years of meditation. In fact, even as a boy 
Edwards had written essays on the powers of the 
mind, and had shown a natural fitness for analyz¬ 
ing thought. The book gave him world-wide fame, 
and still has a place in the libraries of clergymen 
and theologians. 

A Famous Diary is that written by Judge Samuel 
Sewall (1652-1730), a good-humored, conscientious 
man who spent the latter part of his life in Boston. 
In this diary Sewall gives us quaint pictures of 
everyday life, which are exceedingly interesting. 
He tells of witchcraft meetings in Salem; of the 
smart whipping that he gave a small relative for 
playing in prayer time; and of his own courtship 
of Madam Winthrop, who sometimes treated him 


14 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


with a “ great deal of Curtesy, wine, and marma¬ 
lade,” and at other times looked “ dark and lower¬ 
ing.” He presented her with a printed sermon 
nearly every time he visited her; and at one time 
he took her “ gingerbread wrapped up in a clean 
sheet of paper,” and later sugared almonds. But 
his suit was vain. The Madam wished him to 
provide a coach for her if they were married, and 
the Judge objected. 

Although this diary has no polished literary 
style, its value as a storehouse of colonial customs 
is unexcelled. Our respect for Sewall increases 
also when we find that he wrote the first tract 
(1700) against negro slavery, then existing in New 
England, and advocated the rights of woman. 

The Poetry of this Period is not worthy of the 
name or hardly worthy of consideration. It fol¬ 
lows, however, the general style of poetic writing 
then common in England. 

In 1640 the Bay Psalm Book was published—the 
first book printed in America. It was a metrical 
version of the psalms to be used in the churches. 
Its authors said they aimed at “ fidelity rather than 
poetry in translating the hebrew words into english 
language and David’s poetry into english metre.” 
The following selection will show how true was 
that fidelity and how false that metre: — 

“O God, thou art my God, early 
I will for thee inquire: 

My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh 
for thee hath strong desire, 


ANNE BRADSTREET 


15 

In land whereas no water is 
that thirsty is & dry. 

To see as I saw in thine house 
thy strength & thy glory. 

Because thy loving kindness doth 
abundantly excell 

Ev’n life itselfe : wherefore my lips 
forth shall thy prayses tell. 

Thus will I blessing give to thee 
whilst that alive am I: 

And in thy name I will lift up 
these hands of mine on high.” 

Anne Bradstreet ( 1 6 1 2— 1 672). — Though we to-day 
find little merit in colonial poetry, Mrs. Anne Dud¬ 
ley Bradstreet wrote verse which at the time was 
considered marvelous. She was born in England 
in 1612, and was the daughter of Governor Dudley 
of Massachusetts Bay. Her husband also became 
governor of the colony, so that Madam Bradstreet 
did not want for social position. When a volume 
of her poems was published in London, on the 
title-page appeared this startling legend: “ The 

Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America.” In the 
middle of the seventeenth century, that a woman 
could write at all was considered so very extraor¬ 
dinary that perhaps it is no wonder that she was 
considered superhuman. But unfortunately the 
poems themselves do not show much divine fire. 
They are uninteresting, and often ridiculous be¬ 
cause of poor taste in the choice of figures. She 
took for her subjects The Four Elements , The 
Seasons of the Year , The Politics of Old and New 
England, The Four Monarchies, and similar themes. 


i6 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


In The Seasons of the Year she describes the 
weather, the fruits, the flowers, and the labor pe¬ 
culiar to each month. Of May she says : — 

u Now goes the Plow-man to his merry toyle, 

# He might unloose his winter locked soyle; 
****** 

The gardener now superfluous branches lops, 

And poles erects for his young clambring hops. 
****** 

The croaking frogs, whom nipping winter kil’d 
Like birds now chirp, and hop about the field, 

The Nightingale, the black-bird and the Thrush 
Now tune their layes, on sprayes of every bush.” 

In describing winter she says : — 

“ Cold frozen January next comes in, 

Chilling the blood and shrinking up the skin; 
****** 

The day much longer then it was before, 

The cold not lessened, but augmented more. 

Now Toes and Ears, and Fingers often freeze, 

And Travellers their noses often leese.” 

Contemplations is the best of her poems. It was 
written late in life, and shows a genuine love of 
nature and more ease in expression than most of 
her other work. Near the beginning of the poem 
occur these lines : — 

“ Under the cooling shadow of a stately elm, 

Close sat I by a goodly river’s side, 

Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm; 

A lonely place, with pleasures dignified. 

I once that loved the shady woods so well, 

Now thought the rivers did the trees excel, 

And if the sun would ever shine, there would I dwell. 


MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH 


17 


u While on the stealing stream I fixed mine eye, 

Which to the longed for ocean held its course, 

I marked nor crooks, nor rubs, that there did lie, 

Could hinder aught, but still augment its force: 

O happy flood, quoth I, that holds thy race 
Till thou arrive at thy beloved place. 

Nor is it rocks or shoals that can obstruct thy pace.” 

Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705) wrote a poem 
which embodied the Puritan’s hopes and fears for 
another world, and as such became more popular 
than any other piece of colonial literature. It is 
called The Day of Doom — or a Poetical Description 
of the Great and Last Judgment. 

It begins by telling of the security of sinners: — 

“ Wallowing in all kinds of sin vile wretches lay secure.” 

It is night. They are awakened by the coming 
of Christ to “judge both Quick and Dead.” In 
great fright — 

“ Some hide themselves in Caves and Delves in places under 
ground, 

Some rashly leap into the Deep to scape by being drown’d; 
Some to the Rocks (O senseless blocks !) and woody 
mountains run, 

That there they might this fearful sight and dreadful 
Presence shun.” 

But all is vain. The judgment begins. The 
heathen excuse their wickedness on the plea of 
ignorance, and infants ask for mercy because of 
their innocence. Nevertheless, the unregenerate 
are all convinced that their ways are wrong, are 
put to silence, and afterwards punished, while the 
saints are given their reward. 


i8 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


This poem, which went through nine editions in 
spite of its doggerel, “was the solace,” says Lowell, 
“ of every fireside, the flicker of the pine-knots by 
which it was conned perhaps adding a livelier relish 
to its premonitions of eternal combustion.” It was 
learned by heart by little children along with the 
catechism, and had great influence for more than a 
hundred years. 

Wigglesworth was a graduate of Harvard, a 
tutor there for a time, and later pastor and physi¬ 
cian at Malden, Massachusetts. He wrote many 
poems besides the one for which he was most 
famed. He had a very sensitive conscience, and 
a deep sense of his responsibility to his fellow- 
creatures and to God. The horrible pictures in 
The Day of Doom , therefore, were the result of 
his firm beliefs, and not the creation of hard¬ 
heartedness. 

The Influence of Colonial Literature. — Though 
we are apt to smile at colonial literature and deem 
it dry and uninteresting, from this same literature, 
especially from the writings of the Puritans, 
through artistic and imaginative treatment have 
come stories and poems which we rank to-day 
among the best work in American literature. 
Longfellow, Whittier, and Hawthorne owe much 
of their inspiration to old colonial books. 


SUMMARY 


19 


READING FOR CHAPTER I 

Good specimens of colonial literature will be found in 
Duyckinck’s Cyclopedia of American Literature , and in 
Stedman and Hutchinson’s Library of American Literature. 
Moses Coit Tyler’s History of Ajnerican Literature , 1607- 
1765, gives many selections. Anne Bradstreet and Her Time , 
by Helen Campbell, not only gives much of Mrs. Bradstreet’s 
poetry, but is an exceedingly interesting picture of colonial 
times. 


LITERATURE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD 


Prose— 17th Century 

1. Captain John Smith, 1579- 

1631: A True Relation 
of Virginia ; A Descrip¬ 
tion of New England; 
The General History of 
Virginia; The True 
Travels. 

2. William Strachey, born 1585: 

Wracke and Redemption 
of Sir Thomas Gates; 
Historie of Travaile into 
Virginia. 

3. Alexander Whitaker, 1588: 

Good Newes from Vir¬ 
ginia. 

4. William Bradford, 1588-1657: 

History of Plymouth 
Plantation. 

5. Nathaniel Ward, I 579 ~i 6 53 : 

The Simple Cobbler of 
Agawam. 

6. John Winthrop, 1588-1649: 

History of New England. 


7. John Cotton, 1585-1652: Ser¬ 

mons. 

8. Edward Johnson, 1599-1672: 

Wonder-working Provi¬ 
dence of Zion's Savior in 
New England. 

9. John Eliot, 1604-1690: Trans¬ 

lation of Bible into lan¬ 
guage of the Indians ; 
The Christian Common¬ 
wealth. 

10. John Lawson, 16— to 1712: 

History of North Caro¬ 
lina. 

11. Increase Mather, 1638-1723: 

One hundred and sixty 
publications. 

12. Samuel Sewall, 1652-1730: 

Diary. 

13. Cotton Mather, 1663-1728: 

Magnalia Christi Ameri¬ 
cana , and nearly four 
hundred other publica¬ 
tions. 


20 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Poetry — 17th Century 

1. George Sandys, 1577-1644: 

Translation of ten books 
of Ovid's Metamorphoses. 

2. Anne Bradstreet, 1612-1672: 

The Tenth Muse Lately 
Sprung Up in America. 

3. Michael Wigglesworth, 1631- 

1705 : The Day of Doom ; 
God's Controversy with 
New England. 

Prose — 18th Century 

1. James Blair, 1656-1743: The 
Present State of Virginia 
and the College. 

7. William Byrd, 1674-1744 : His¬ 
tory of the Dividing Line. 
3. Thomas Prince, 1687-1758: 

Chronological History of 
New England. 


4. William Stith, 1689-1755 : His¬ 

tory of the First Discovery 
and Settlement of Vir¬ 
ginia. 

5. Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758 : 

An Inquiry into the Free¬ 
dom of the Will. 

6 . David Brainerd, 1718-1747: 

Divine Grace Displayed. 

7. Samuel Davies, 1724-1761: 

Sermons. 

8. William Livingston, 1723- 

1790: Military Opera¬ 
tions in America. 

Poetry — 18th Century 

1. Mather Byles, 1706-1788: 

Poems , published 1736. 

2. Thomas Godfrey, 1736-1763: 

Juvenile Poems on various 
subjects with the Prince 
of Parthia, a Tragedy. 


CHAPTER II 


THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD: FROM THE 
STAMP ACT, 1765, TO 1800; OR FROM FRANK¬ 
LIN TO IRVING 


EVENTS 


Stamp Act, 1765. 

First Continental Congress, 1774. 
Battle of Concord and Lexington; 

Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775. 
Declaration of Independence, 
1776. 

Surrender of Cornwallis at York- 
town, 1781. 

Peace Treaty, 1783. 

Constitution adopted, 1788. 
Washington’s administration, 
1789-1797. 


a. Organization of the depart¬ 
ments of the government; for¬ 
mation of the Cabinet, 1789. 

b. Whitney invents the cotton 
gin, 1793- 

Adams’s administration, 1797- 
1801. 

a. The Alien and Sedition 
Laws, 1798. 

b. The city of Washington 
made the national capital, 
1800. 


General Characteristics. — The Revolutionary pe¬ 
riod, being one of war and the adjustment to new 
political conditions, did not furnish the atmosphere 
for writing that can be termed purely literary. The 
great national events called for an absorbing inter¬ 
est in politics. Should we declare our independ¬ 
ence of English control; should we adopt the 
Constitution; should our first President be Wash¬ 
ington — these were some of the important ques¬ 
tions before the people. James Otis, Samuel Adams, 
Patrick Henry, and other patriots made strong 
and eloquent speeches. John Adams, Thomas 

21 


22 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Paine, and others wrote fiery articles for the 
newspapers, and sent out stirring appeals in 
pamphlet form. Practical matters were foremost. 
It was not a time when a person could sit quietly 
in his library and let his imagination dwell on 
those ideal forms of beauty, love, and happiness 
which make the greatest literature. Men were 
forced to act, not dream; to work, not theorize. 
Literature as an art faded into the background. 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was one of the 
greatest men of this period. He was the author 
of many political articles, but he holds his place 
in literature for work of a far different kind. He 
was born in Boston, of intelligent though humble 
parentage, and by sheer force of industry and 
common sense rose to a position of importance 
among statesmen, scientists, and philosophers. He 
received only two years’ schooling before he was 
apprenticed to an older brother to learn the printer’s 
trade. While thus engaged he wrote several arti¬ 
cles for his brother’s paper, secretly slipping them 
under the office door that his authorship might not 
be suspected. He also spent many hours reading 
an odd volume of the Spectator which fell into his' 
hands, and practicing exercises in composition with 
the Spectator essays as models. He continued to 
teach himself throughout his life, saving his money 
that he might buy books, and saving his time that 
he might have leisure to read them. 

At the age of seventeen, owing to the harsh¬ 
ness of his brother, he ran away from home. He 





























♦ 



































































































































































BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


23 


reached Philadelphia, where in a few years he es¬ 
tablished himself as a printer. At the age of forty- 
two he had become a man of sufficient means to lay 
aside active business and devote himself to scien¬ 
tific and other pursuits. His discoveries in electri¬ 
city brought him the title of Doctor from Oxford 
and St. Andrews across the sea, and made him a 
member of the Royal Society of England and of 
the French Academy. He did many things for 
practical, everyday comfort and for the general en¬ 
lightenment of the people: he invented the light¬ 
ning rod, and a stove which found great favor; he 
induced the people of Philadelphia to pave and 
clean their streets; set on foot the movement which 
has resulted in the establishment of public libraries ; 
and founded the University of Pennsylvania. 

As a public man Franklin did wise and useful 
service for our country. For fifteen years before 
the Revolution he lived in England as colonial 
agent for Pennsylvania, and during the Revolution 
he was sent to France to urge the justice of our 
cause and obtain aid from the French people. He 
was so successful that France acknowledged our 
independence and sent troops to help maintain it. 
Later it was owing largely to his influence that the 
Constitution was unanimously adopted. 

Franklin’s Writings. — Poor Richard's Almanac 
and the Autobiography are the two books which 
give Franklin recognition in a history of literature. 
He began the Almanac in 1732 and continued it for 
twenty-five years. He tells us in his Autobiography: 


24 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


“ I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and 
it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reaped con¬ 
siderable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. 
And observing that it was generally read, sparce any neigh¬ 
borhood in the province being without it, I considered it as a 
proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common 
people, who bought scarcely any other books ; I therefore filled 
all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days 
in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as in¬ 
culcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring 
wealth, and thereby securing virtue.” 

Many of the proverbs are still well known. 
Some of them are as follows: — 

“ God helps them that help themselves.” 

“ Diligence is the mother of good luck.” 

“ Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in 
no other, and scarce in that.” 

u Early to bed and early to rise 
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” 

The Autobiography was begun in 1771. Like 
most other things that Franklin did, it was written 
with the idea of doing good, in the thought that pos¬ 
terity might be benefited in knowing the steps by 
which he “ emerged from poverty and obscurity . . . 
to a state of affluence and some degree of reputa¬ 
tion in the world.” It is considered one of the 
best autobiographies ever written. It has not only 
the interest of a narrative, moving straight forward 
with close fidelity to facts, but also the interest 
which comes from learning the character of a great 
man. Common sense is revealed on every page, in 
a style dignified and clear, and humor, which was 


JOHN WOOLMAN 


25 


inseparable from Franklin’s nature, meets us occa¬ 
sionally with a warm touch of feeling. The book 
has always been popular, and the sincerity with 
which it is written, combined with its vigorous 
style, makes it a classic still widely read. 

John Woolman( 1720-1772) wrote a Journal which 
was published during this period, and which well 
deserves mention and reading. It is a simple rec¬ 
ord of the man’s life — “the sweetest and purest 
autobiography in the language,” said William Ellery 
Channing to Whittier. In style it is clear and 
graceful, and it possesses a particular charm be¬ 
cause of its sincerity. 

One finds in this journal little evidence of the 
spirit of the times, for Woolman was a Quaker, 
born in New Jersey, a man with a beautiful soul 
and a wonderful love for all creatures. But his 
goodness seems to have come only after a struggle, 
for at sixteen, he tells us, “ to exceed in vanity and 
to promote mirth was my chief study.” 

When he reached manhood he became a tailor. 
He says: “ I believed the hand of Providence 
pointed out this business for me, and I was taught 
to be content with it, though I felt at times a dis¬ 
position that would have sought for something 
greater.” His observation of life led him to be¬ 
lieve that people in humble circumstances are the 
happiest; therefore, when he saw riches within his 
grasp, he withheld his hand. In course of time he 
became a retailer of goods pertaining to his trade; 
he remarks : “ My trade increased every year, and 


2 6 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


the way to large business appeared open, but I felt 
a stop in my mind.” He also was particular in re¬ 
gard to what kind of goods he sold. “ Things 
that served chiefly to please the vain mind in 
people,” he writes, “I was not easy to trade in; 
seldom did it; and whenever I did I found it 
weaken me as a Christian.” 

His ideas on slavery were early and clearly 
formed and had considerable influence in mold¬ 
ing public opinion. He expresses his views thus: 
“ Though we made slaves of the negroes, and the 
Turks made slaves of the Christians, I believed 
that liberty was the natural right of all men 
equally.” 

Woolman’s Journal contains many other sage 
reflections besides those relating to simple living 
and the brotherhood of man. These views he 
gave to the world through the spoken word as 
well as the written, for he traveled much, visiting 
different societies of Friends in our own country 
and in England. He died in the quaint old Eng¬ 
lish city of York. 

The Federalist (1787-1788), a series of articles 
published in the New York papers, urging the people 
of that state to adopt the Constitution, is the work in 
this period of the most lasting literary importance. 
These articles were mainly written by Alexander 
Hamilton, although James Madison wrote a goodly 
number, and John Jay a few. 

Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), born in the 
West Indies of Scotch parentage, came to the 


ALEXANDER HAMILTON 


27 


colonies when only thirteen. He was educated in 
colonial schools, and embraced the colonial cause 
in. the Revolution. He began by writing news¬ 
paper articles and making speeches; later he en¬ 
tered the army, and after brilliant service was 
made a member of Washington’s staff and took 
charge of Washington’s correspondence. 

After leaving the army Hamilton studied law 
and then entered Congress. By his Federalist 
articles he not only attained a foremost place in 
the literature of his time, but made himself promi¬ 
nent throughout the country as a man of strong 
intellect. As Secretary of the Treasury under 
Washington, he strengthened the opinion already 
held of his ability, by placing the government 
on a sound financial basis. His untimely death 
in a duel with Aaron Burr, who was bitterly 
angered because Hamilton’s influence had pre¬ 
vented his election as governor of New York, 
caused a storm of public indignation which Burr 
never outlived. 

All the articles in the Federalist were signed 
Publius , whether written by Hamilton, Jay, or 
Madison. They are clear, earnest, and dignified. 
They show the advantages that will come to the 
colonists from adopting the Constitution, and the 
dangers that must follow without it. They cover 
the fundamental principles of all government, and 
thus make a valuable text-book for students of 
politics. 


28 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


George Washington (1732-1799), though probably 
never dreaming that he would be placed with the 
writers of his country, in his Farewell Address 
(1796), at the close of his second term as President, 
left words of wisdom in regard to the manage¬ 
ment of the nation that no true patriot can neglect. 
The address is formal rather than brilliant, but its 
stateliness is quite in keeping with the nobility and 
unselfishness of Washington himself, and of the 
thoughts embodied. 

The Poetry. — The greater part of the poetry of 
this period was inspired by the political situations. 

Francis Hopkinson ( 1737 — 1791 ) of Philadelphia, 
a judge, member of the Continental Congress, and 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote 
the humorous Battle of the Kegs , in which he told 
of the great alarm of the British troops at Phila¬ 
delphia on seeing some kegs float down the Dela¬ 
ware. Supposing them to be some device of the 
rebels for entering the city,—• 

“The soldiers flew, the sailors too, 

And scared almost to death, sir, 

Wore out their shoes, to spread the news, 

And ran till out of breath, sir.” 

The Hartford Wits, a group of men in Hartford, 
Connecticut, wrote much in both prose and poetry. 
The best-remembered of them are Timothy Dwight, 
John Trumbull, and Joel Barlow. Dwight (1752- 
1817), 2. grandson of Jonathan Edwards, was 
president of Yale College and the author of the 
Conquest of Canaaii and Columbia. 


THE HARTFORD WITS 


29 


Trumbull (1750-1831), an infant prodigy who at 
the age of seven passed his Greek and Latin ex¬ 
aminations for Yale College, was a lawyer and a 
judge. In 1776 he published two cantos of a poem 
called McFingal. McFingal, the hero, is a bigoted 
Tory who makes a fiery speech at a New England 
town-meeting, and some time later is tarred and 
feathered and glued to a liberty pole by the indig¬ 
nant patriots. This burlesque on the Tories was 
hailed with delight by the rebellious colonists. 
The poem grew to four cantos in 1782, and had a 
very wide circulation. 

Joel Barlow (1754-1812), chaplain in the Revo¬ 
lutionary army and also a lawyer, wrote The 
Columbiady a long epic which has been adjudged a 
stupendous failure. It was the work of the greater 
part of Barlow’s life, and tells of the history of 
America, her progress, and her future glory as 
seen in a vision by Columbus as he lay in chains 
in a Spanish dungeon. In idea the poem is both 
poetic and noble, and breathes a love of country 
unsurpassed by any patriot; but the long-drawn 
descriptions and pompous marshaling of events 
make it very tiresome. 

Barlow’s Hasty Puddingy which gives a partial 
picture of New England customs, is more pleasing. 
While living in France he found it next to im¬ 
possible to get the New England dish which his 
lines celebrate, and his joy on having it at last 
served to him resulted in the poem. 


30 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


“ Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy 
Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy! 

Doomed o’er the world through devious path to roam, 
Each clime my country, and each house my home, 

My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end, 

I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend. 

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town, 

How long in vain I wandered up and down. 

****** 

But here, though distant from our native shore, 

With mutual glee we meet and laugh once more.’ 1 

Philip Freneau (1752-1832), a merchant, a journal¬ 
ist, and a sea-captain, born in New York, wrote a 
good deal of political satire, like his contemporaries, 
and also some verse which contains true poetic 
feeling and original observations of nature. Verse 
of this quality places him above the other poets 
of this period. His Indian Burying Ground and 
Wild Honeysuckle mark the height of his ability. 
Three stanzas of Wild Honeysuckle are as follows: 

u Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 

Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 

Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, 

Unseen thy little branches greet: 

No roving foot shall crush thee here, 

No busy hand provoke a tear. 

u By Nature’s self in white arrayed, 

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 

And planted here thy guardian shade, 

And sent soft waters murmuring by: 

Thus quietly thy summer goes, 

Thy days declining to repose. 


SUMMARY 


31 


u Smit with those charms, that must decay, 

I grieve to see your future doom : 

They died — nor were those flowers more gay, 
The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; 
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn’s power, 
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.” 


READING FOR CHAPTER U 

See Stedman and Hutchinson’s Library of American Liter¬ 
ature for selections of both poetry and prose. 

Franklin. — Autobiography. 

Woolman.— Journal , Chapter I. 

Washington. — Farewell Address. 


LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
FROM FRANKLIN TO IRVING 


Prose 

1. Benjamin Franklin, 1706- 

1790: Poor Richard's Al¬ 
manac ; Autobiography. 

2. John Woolman, 1720-1772: 

Journal , published 1774. 

3. Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826: 

Declaration of Independence. 

4. Thomas Paine, 1737-1809: 

Common Sense; Rights of 
Man ; The Age of Reason. 

5. John Adams, 1735-1826: De¬ 

fense of the Constitution of 
the United States. 

6. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, 

1748-1816: Modern Chiv¬ 
alry. 

7. James Madison, 1751-1836: 

Papers in the Federalist. 

8. Alexander Hamilton, 1757- 

1804: The Federalist. 

9. Mrs. Susanna Rowson, 1762- 

1824: Novel — Charlotte 
Temple. 


10. Charles Brockden Brown, 

1771-1810: Novels — Wie- 
land; Ormond; Arthur 
Mervyn. 

11. George Washington, 1732- 

1799: Farewell Address, 1796. 

12. John Marshall, 1775-1835: 

Life of Washington , 1804-7. 

Poetry 

1. Phillis Wheatley, 1753-1794: 

Poems on Various Subjects. 

2. Francis Hopkinson, 1737- 

1791: The Battle of the Kegs. 

3. Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817: 

Hymns and Songs. 

4. Joel Barlow, 1754-1812: The 

Columbiad; Hasty Pudding. 

5. John Trumbull, 1750-1831: 

McFingal. 

6. Philip Freneau, 1752-1832: 

Lines to a Wild Honey¬ 
suckle; The Indian Bury¬ 
ing Ground. 


CHAPTER III 


THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


1. Jefferson’s administration, 

1801-1809. 

a. War with Tripoli, 1801. 

b. Purchase of Louisiana, 
1803. 

2. Madison’s administration, 

1809-1817. 

War with England, 
1812-1815. 

3. Monroe’s administration, 1817- 

1825. 

a. War with Seminole In¬ 
dians, 1817. 

b. Missouri Compromise, 
1820. 

c. Monroe Doctrine de¬ 
clared, 1823. 

4. John Quincy Adams’s admin¬ 

istration, 1825-1829. 

a. Erie Canal opened, 
1825. 

b. Temperance reform be¬ 
gun, 1826. 

5. Jackson’s administration, 1829- 

1837. 

a. Woman Suffrage move¬ 
ment prominent, 1830. 

b. Garrison publishes The 
Liberator , 1831. 

c. South Carolina nulli¬ 
fies the protective tariff, 
1832. 


Van Buren’s administration. 
1837-1841. 

Business panic, 1837. 
Harrison and Tyler’s adminis¬ 
tration, 1841-1845. 

a. Ashburton Treaty,1842. 

b. First electric telegraph 
in America, 1844. 

c. Annexation of Texas, 
1845. 

8. Polk’s administration, 1845- 

1849. 

a. Oregon acquired, 1846. 

b. Mexican War, 1846- 
1847. 

c. Discovery of gold in 

California, 1848. 

9. Taylor and Fillmore's admin¬ 

istration, 1849-1853. 

Fugitive Slave Law, 
1850. 

10. Pierce’s administration, 1853- 

1857. 

a. Arizona and New 

Mexico added to our 
territory, 1848-1853. 

b. Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 

1854. 

11. Buchanan’s administration, 

1857-1861. 

a. The Dred Scott de¬ 
cision, 1857. 


EVENTS TO 1870 
6 . 

7 - 


32 


NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE 33 


b. Business panic, 1857. 

c. Formation of South¬ 
ern Confederacy, 1861. 

12. Lincoln’s administration, 
1861-1865. 

a. Civil War, 1861-1865. 

b. The Proclamation of 
Emancipation, 1863. 

c. Lincoln assassinated, 
1865. 


13. Johnson’s administration, 
1865-1869. 

a. Reconstruction of 
Southern States, 1865- 
1870. 

b. Atlantic Cable perma¬ 
nently laid, 1866. 

c. Purchase of Alaska, 
1867. 


General Characteristics. — The first half of the 
nineteenth century was a period of distinct na¬ 
tional development, when new territory was ac¬ 
quired, roads and canals were built, manufactories 
established, and the general prosperity of our 
country was put on a sure basis. It was a period 
when we felt particularly proud of our achieve¬ 
ments and particularly sensitive to criticism; when 
we were impatient with any one who found flaws 
in the United States or in our civilization. In the 
first half of this century our greatest writers lived 
and rose to prominence. 

Near the middle of the century came the great 
Civil War, in which we tested before the world 
whether our Union could endure. Among the thou¬ 
sands who fell in the conflict there must have been 
many of pronounced literary talent, who probably 
would have swelled the lists of our later writers. 

The latter half of the century was a period of 
great growth in population, wealth, and culture. 
Cities became large and prominent; fine public 
buildings, churches, libraries, museums, schools, 
and colleges multiplied. Writers arose all over 


34 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


the country, particularly in the South and the 
Middle West. 

Characteristics of the Literature. — In the nine¬ 
teenth century Americans were not close imitators 
of English literature, as in the earlier periods; 
still it was impossible not to be affected somewhat 
by the great waves of thought which sweep from 
one country to another. 

In the latter part of the eighteenth century and 
the first part of the nineteenth we notice a great 
change in the literature of England. Our Revo¬ 
lution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789 
had set strongly in motion certain ideas in regard 
to individual rights and the worth of the common 
people, which shook most minds from their old 
ways of thinking. Then, too, English writers no 
longer considered the Greek and Roman classics 
the only worthy models for imitation. They had 
begun to read German literature, to study the 
myths of the Teutons, to re-read their own old 
writers, to love nature, and to feel more kindly 
toward man. A decided romantic tendency de¬ 
veloped. The ruined tower, the ghost-haunted 
castle, extraordinary adventures of all kinds, fig¬ 
ured in prose and poetry. This liberalism in 
thought resulted in greater variety of literary ex¬ 
pression, greater freedom in literary form. The 
novel, first published in 1740, had developed into 
a settled literary type and was depicting all con¬ 
ditions of life, but delighting the public particu¬ 
larly with the romantic tales of Walter Scott. 


NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE 35 

Americans still read English books, though their 
political connection with England was severed. 
Hence romanticism, together with other forces 
which will be mentioned later, affected American 
literature and broke up the domination of theology 
which, in New England at least, had biased the 
writers in colonial times. This romantic spirit was 
a positive benefit to the literature produced by our 
great writers, because it gave free play to the im¬ 
agination and feelings; but its effect upon ordinary 
writers was to make them weakly sentimental, as 
is shown by our magazines and novels in general 
before 1850. 

The literature of the last part of the century 
was influenced by science as well as by romantic 
tendencies. Since 1830 great strides have been 
made in scientific investigation of all kinds. It is 
not necessary to enumerate the many material 
advantages which have resulted from the applica¬ 
tion of steam, electricity, and physical forces, nor 
to show the results that have come from the study 
of the composition of the earth, and the body and 
the mind of man; but it is important to know that 
the scientific habit of thinking has been formed, 
the habit of looking at things as they are and not 
according to traditional prejudices. This has led 
to literary attempts to describe life as it really 
exists, and to a general advance in workmanship 
in all kinds of literature. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE FIRST PROMINENT WRITERS OF 
THE NEW REPUBLIC 

During the first part of the nineteenth century 
the greatest literary names were Irving, Bryant, 
Cooper, and Poe. New York, a city of twenty-five 
thousand, was then the literary center, and thither 
came writers from New England and the South, 
finding publishers for their books and employment 
on the New York journals. 

The character of our first national literature, which 
found a center in New York, is light and entertain¬ 
ing. We have poems, stories, and sketches which 
amuse or kindle the fancy, but which rarely strike 
the deep chords of human life. The writings show 
a delicacy of thought and refinement of expression 
which surprised our foreign critics, who supposed 
that a nation just emerging from revolution would 
naturally produce writers of rude strength and 
passion. 

Washington Irving (1783— 1 859) is generally con¬ 
sidered the Father of American Literature because 
he was the first American to obtain praise abroad 
for his literary work. So excellent is this literary 
work that it would be small credit to any one not 
to admire it; but the wonderful thing is that it 
36 


WASHINGTON IRVING 


37 


came from a land whose houses yet stood on the 
edge of the forest, and whose sons still struggled 
with wild beasts and Indians, and from the pen of 
a writer who had little schooling. Irving himself 
said: “ It has been a matter of marvel to my 
European readers that a man from the wilds of 
America should express himself in tolerable Eng¬ 
lish.” 

The particular “wilds” in which Irving was born 
happened to be New York City, where his Scotch 
father and English mother had settled twenty 
years before. His father, a stern Presbyterian 
deacon, brought his children up in an atmosphere 
cold and rigid; but in spite of this, Irving early 
showed a fondness for miscellaneous reading and 
the theater, and an inclination to saunter and dream. 
As his health was delicate, he often made excursions 
with his dog and gun among the hills bordering on 
the Hudson, listening with intense delight to the 
stories of the Dutch settlers, and learning to love 
both the country and its legends. 

As he grew to manhood he studied law, spent 
two years in Europe for the benefit of his health, 
and coming home started literary work by writing 
a series of essays for Salmagundi , a semi-monthly 
periodical published by his brother William and 
his friend Paulding. In 1809 he published Knicker¬ 
bocker's History of New York. But though all his 
literary ventures were successful, Irving hesitated 
to take up literature as a profession; he went into 
business with his brothers and gave up writing 


38 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


for a time. In 1815 this business partnership sent 
him to England, and while he was there the failure 
of the firm prompted him to take up his pen once 
more. From this time forth Washington Irving 
was a professional man of letters. 

Until 1832 he lived in Europe, for a time in 
England, then in Spain, then as secretary to the 
American legation in London. In 1832 he came 
home and was welcomed with every honor. As he 
was unmarried, he lived with his nieces for ten 
delightful years at Tarry town on the Hudson, in 
a house which he purchased and named Sunny- 
side. From 1842 to 1846 he was minister to 
Spain. He died at Sunnyside, and lies buried in 
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which overlooks the 
scenes of Ichabod Crane’s adventures. 

Irving’s Writings.— Knickerbocker's History of 
New York is a humorous account of the settlement 
and early history of New York. The book was 
supposed to be written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, 
who, according to Irving, was “a small elderly 
gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked 
hat,” who had mysteriously disappeared from his 
lodgings in Mulberry Street and left the manu¬ 
script of the book behind him. The ridiculous 
accounts of the old governors, Wouter Van Twiller, 
William the Testy, and Peter Stuyvesant of the 
silver leg, their wars with the neighboring colo¬ 
nists and their treatment of their Dutch subjects, 
make highly diverting reading. The celebrated 
decision made by Governor Van Twiller in a dis- 























































































WASHINGTON IRVING 


39 


pute concerning accounts, is a good example of 
Irving’s method of making light of the good old 
days when New York was called New Amsterdam. 
The contending parties, Wandle and Barent, are x 
represented as appearing before the governor the 
morning after he was installed in office: — 

“ The two parties being confronted before him, each pro¬ 
duced a book of accounts, written in a language and character 
that would have puzzled any but a High-Dutch commentator, 
or a learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage 
Wouter took them one after the other, and having poised 
them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number 
of leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked 
for half an hour without saying a word; at length, laying his 
finger beside his nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, 
With the air of a man who has just caught a subtle idea by the 
tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth, puffed forth a 
column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous gravity and 
solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over the 
leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just 
as thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final 
opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced : 
therefore, Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent 
should give Wandle a receipt, and the constable should pay 
the costs. 

“This decision, being straightway made known, diffused 
general joy throughout New Amsterdam, for the people im¬ 
mediately perceived that they had a very wise and equitable 
magistrate to rule over them. But its happiest effect was, 
that not another lawsuit took place throughout the whole of 
his administration; and the office of constable fell into such 
decay, that there was not one of those losel scouts known in 
the province for many years. I am the more particular in 
dwelling on this transaction, not only because I deem it one 
of the most sage and righteous judgments on record, and well 


40 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because it 
was a miraculous event in the history of the renowned 
Wouter—being the only time he was ever known to come 
to a decision in the whole course of his life.” 


Knickerbocker's History was eagerly read by the 
generation for whom it was published. Its subject- 
matter became so popular, the “ peculiar and racy 
customs and usages ” derived from the Dutch were 
so harped upon by contemporary writers of fiction, 
that Irving said: “ I find myself almost crowded 
off the legendary ground which I was the first to 
explore.” 

Sometimes Knickerbocker's History has been con¬ 
sidered Irving’s best work; but usually that merit 
has been accorded to The Sketch-Book. This con¬ 
tains Irving’s best-known stories, Rip Van Winkle 
and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , besides a num¬ 
ber of essays and sketches. In these stories, the 
scenes of which border the Hudson River, Irving 
did an incalculable service to America, by weaving 
the charm of romance over a country crude and 
new. His service to literature was even greater, 
for these stories, together with Knickerbocker's 
History , being wholly American in subject ^nd 
original in treatment, give us a literature truly 
American. 

Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a Traveller are 
in the same form as The Sketch-Book; the former 
gives pleasant pictures of English life and one or 
two American stories, and the latter contains tales 


WASHINGTON IRVING 


41 


relating to several countries. The Life and Voy - 
ages of Christopher Columbus , A Chronicle of the 
Conquest of Granada , and The Alhambra were the 
result of Irving’s living in Spain and becoming 
interested in Spanish history and romantic legend. 
The Spaniards gave him the title of “the poet 
Irving.” 

His Life of Goldsmith , a most delightful biogra¬ 
phy, was written because he felt a fellowship for 
the man. His Life of Washington was his last 
work, and one which he wrote with great enthu¬ 
siasm. It is excellent in style, and just in its 
judgments of men and things. 

Irving’s Style. — Irving possessed a gayety of 
temperament and an ease and charm of manner 
which made him a general favorite, not only in the 
plain drawing-rooms of his own country, but amid 
the stately elegance of foreign courts. This at¬ 
tractiveness of manner he likewise shows in his 
writings. They are as graceful and charming in 
style as himself, and show an elegance and finish 
rarely equaled. His choice of words is most happy, 
and his humor, pleasant and quaint, spreads beams 
of sunlight over his pages. He shows great skill, 
too, in the construction of his stories and sketches. 
At a time when the short story had not developed 
to the permanent literary type of to-day, he wrote 
tales which have hardly been surpassed in form. 
His biographical work is somewhat tinged with 
imagination, but is such delightful reading that one 
seldom wishes it different. 


42 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Irving’s Popularity. — During his lifetime Irving 
was the author who held first place in the hearts 
of his countrymen. He charmed young and old, 
and was no less admired in England. In 1830 the 
Royal Society of Literature of London gave him a 
gold medal, and Oxford University gave him the 
degree of D.C.L. The whole English people ap¬ 
plauded him, and he was entertained in their high¬ 
est social, literary, and political circles. 

That enthusiasm which existed in his lifetime 
still finds an echo in the world to-day. American 
life and foreign life take on an added interest be¬ 
cause of what he wrote. The Hudson River and 
the region round about where Hendrick Hudson 
played at tenpins and the Headless Horseman 
rode; Spain, with its Alhambra and romantic leg¬ 
ends ; England, with its vine-grown manor houses 
and gray old cathedrals, — he has invested all with 
undying charm. Some of Irving’s stories are con¬ 
sidered classics, and all his writings are still worth 
the reading. It is indeed a satisfaction to know 
that our first great literary representative after the 
Revolution was a man of such enduring magical 
qualities. 

The Knickerbocker School is a name given to a 
group of New York writers of Irving’s time, some 
of whom contributed to the Knickerbocker Magazine , 
which flourished from 1833 to 1864. The group 
includes Irving himself, James Kirke Paulding, 
Joseph Rodman Drake, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and 
Nathaniel Parker Willis. Irving excepted, how- 


THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 


43 


ever, all these writers of the Knickerbocker School 
are of minor importance. 

Paulding (1779-1860) worked with Irving on 
Salmagundi , and some years later, after the pub¬ 
lication of that periodical was abandoned, started a 
series of essays which he again called Sahnagundi. 
He wrote also many poems, novels, humorous 
sketches, and pamphlets. The novel called The 
Dutchman's Fireside (1831) is his best work. 

Drake (1795-1820), who died at the early age of 
twenty-five, is remembered for two poems, The 
American Flag and The Culprit Fay. The Ameri¬ 
can Flag is familiar to all, beginning with these 
lines: — 

“When Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 

She tore the azure robes of night, 

And set the stars of glory there.” 

The Culprit Fay is a poem of the most dainty 
fancy, containing descriptions of river and moun¬ 
tain scenery, and telling how a fay was punished 
for falling in love with a mortal. For one task, 
he must catch a drop from the bow made by the 
sturgeon as he leaps from the water. Then after 
successfully performing this feat, he must follow a 
shooting star and catch the “ last faint spark of its 
burning train.” 

“ He put his acorn helmet on ; 

It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down; 

The corselet-plate that guarded his breast 
Was once the wild bee’s golden vest; 


44 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


His cloak of a thousand mingled dyes, 

Was formed of the wings of butterflies ; 

His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen; 

Studs of gold on a ground of green ; 

And the quivering lance which he brandished bright, 

Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight. 

“ Swift he bestrode his firefly steed; 

He bared his blade of the bent grass blue; 

He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed, 

And away like a glance of thought he flew 
To skim the heavens and follow far 
The fiery trail of the rocket-star.” 

Haiieck (1790-1867) is remembered for his mar¬ 
tial poem Marco Bozzaris; other poems, popular in 
their day, are Fanny , Alnwick Castle , and Burns. 
When Drake died, Halleck wrote a poem in his 
memory containing the well-known lines : — 

“None knew thee but to love thee, 

None named thee but to praise.” 

Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867) was the son 
of a journalist who founded the widely circulating 
Youth's Companion. He was born in Portland, 
Maine, but lived in New York City during the 
greater part of his literary career. He was a popu¬ 
lar society man — 

“The topmost bright bubble on the wave of the town” — 

and dashed off with the greatest ease all sorts of 
poems, stories, and descriptions. For a number 
of years he was one of the editors of the Home 
Journal, for which he wrote accounts of operas, 


WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 


45 


theaters, and balls. Before this period he wrote 
many poems paraphrasing events related in the 
Bible; his Absalom and Hagar in the Wilderness 
still hold a place in literary collections, but shal¬ 
lowness and sentimentality in both prose and 
poetry prevent him from being called great, and 
from being particularly interesting to the present 
generation. His miscellaneous sketches are col¬ 
lected in volumes bearing such names as Letters 
from under a Bridge , Pencillings by the Way f and 
Inklings of Adventure. 

William Cullen Bryant ( 1 794-1878), the first of 
our real poets, had a large share in originating and. 
elevating the literature of our country. He was 
born in Cummington, Massachusetts. His mother 
was a descendant of John Alden of Plymouth, and 
his father was a physician and a person of educa¬ 
tion and local eminence, who could himself write 
sonnets and other verse. His great-grandfather, 
too, and other members of the family were writers 
of verse, so without doubt Bryant inherited his 
gift. 

Carefully supervised by his father, Bryant’s 
progress in learning and composition was rapid. 
He was extremely precocious. At the age of nine 
he wrote poems, and when only thirteen published 
in pamphlet form a denunciation in verse of the 
embargo which Congress had laid on American 
shipping. He entered Williams College, but lack 
of money prevented his remaining there more than 
seven months. However, he continued his studies 


4 6 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


without the aid of schools, and became distinguished 
as a scholar of many languages. He studied law, 
and practiced it for several years; but a literary 
life had such strong attractions for him that in 1826 
he went to New York and secured a position as 
editor of a magazine. 

During the rest of his life Bryant occupied him¬ 
self as journalist and poet. For more than half a 
century he was editor of The New York Evening 
Post , and through it he raised the moral and lit¬ 
erary tone of journalism. He visited Europe six 
times and traveled much in his own country. He 
became a man of wealth, and owned a fine house 
in New York, also a house near Roslyn, Long Island, 
and another at his birthplace in Massachusetts. 
He died in his eighty-fourth year, having gained 
distinction at home and abroad as a poet and man 
of letters. 

Bryant’s Poems. — The most remarkable of 
Bryant’s poems is Thanatopsis , a poem on death, 
written when he was seventeen. When this, with 
a number of his other poems, was sent to the North 
American Review for publication, the editor de¬ 
clared that he had been imposed upon, that no one 
on this side of the Atlantic was capable of writing 
such verses. And, indeed, besides absolute original¬ 
ity, they show a maturity and finish that Bryant 
himself never excelled. Stately and grand his 
lines flow on — “ fit for a temple service beneath 
the vault of heaven ” — 



























WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 


47 


11 So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 

Thou go not, like the quarry slave, at night, 

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.” 

The boy who could write such lines was an in¬ 
tense lover of nature. Green River , To a Water- 
fowl , and other early poems show this trait. In 
fact, all through his poetry, early and late, descrip¬ 
tions of nature, minute and exact, mark his writ¬ 
ings. He was a stanch patriot, too, and an 
admirer of the true and right. The Antiquity of 
Freedom , Our Country's Call , Song of Marion's 
Men , and The Death of Slavery are poems in 
evidence. He is sometimes playful in his verse, 
as in The Wind and the Stream i and always there 
is a delicacy and refinement in his expression — 
too much refinement to suit some critics. Lowell 
says: — 

“ HVs too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on.” 

But his simplicity and grace find many admirers, 
and his strong love of nature still holds the heart 
of many readers of The Death of the Flowers , To 
the Fringed Gentian , and The Planting of the 
Apple Tree. 

Bryant’s Translations. — As Byrant was well ac¬ 
quainted with many languages, it was natural that 


48 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


he should be a translator. At different times 
in his life he translated short poems from sev¬ 
eral sources, but when he was over seventy he 
did his greatest work of this kind by translating 
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The blank verse in 
which the poems are rendered ranks with that of 
the great masters. 

Bryant’s Fame. — Although he published much 
prose, Bryant’s literary fame rests entirely on his 
poetry, which well deserves the high rank that was 
given it during his lifetime and has been given it 
since. It lacks passion and fire, but its calm, 
simple beauty, loving description of nature, and 
lofty moral tone have seldom been excelled. 

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), the creator 
of the novel of adventure and stories of Indian 
life, was born in Burlington, New Jersey, but while 
still an infant removed with his parents to a wilder¬ 
ness in New York State. There he passed his 
youth, becoming familiar with trappers, scouts, 
Indians, and lake and woodland scenery. He was 
prepared for college by an Episcopal clergyman at 
Albany, and entered Yale at thirteen. Careless 
habits of study and conduct led to his dismissal, 
however, in his third year, and he entered the 
navy. At twenty-one he married, gave up a sea 
life, and undertook farming. In 1820 he published 
his first novel, Precaution , a story of English life. 
For his next novels he turned to American 
life. In 1821 he published The Spy , a tale of 
the Revolution, which was a great success in 


JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 


49 


America. But no one felt that the book was 
really worthy of praise until an English critic said 
so ; for although America had thrown off the politi¬ 
cal bondage of England, she was still a slave to 
the literary opinions of the mother country. 

After The Spy Cooper wrote The Pioneers , The 
Pilot , and The Last of the Mohicans (1826). His 
popularity was now very great. His novels were 
dramatized, translated into foreign languages, and 
their scenes painted by prominent artists. The 
large sums of money which he realized from the 
sale of his books enabled him to sail to Europe 
with his family and remain abroad several years. 
He continued to write, however, and published 
The Prairie , Red Rover , and other tales. 

While abroad he offended the Europeans by his, 
intense feeling for America. An Englishman 
remarked: “ He is evidently prouder of his birth 
than of his genius; and looks, speaks, and walks 
as if he exulted more in being recognized as an 
American citizen than as the author of The Pilot 
and The Prairie .” He seems to have had a genius 
for offending people, for after his return to America 
he changed his countrymen’s enthusiasm to hatred 
by criticising their manners and institutions, and 
by bringing many libel suits against publishers 
whose criticism of himself he was foolish enough 
to resent. In the midst of fiery arguments with 
his enemies he passed the last years of his life at 
his old home in New York State, called Coopers- 
town after his family. 


50 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Cooper’s Novels. — Cooper is the first American 
novelist whose books have lived. Charles Brock- 
den Brown (1771-1810), who was really our first 
novelist of any note, published Wieland in 1798, 
and followed it with several other stories; but his 
books are not read now except by the student of 
literary history. Cooper, however, still holds a good 
place in the favor of general readers, not only in 
this country but in others. 

The series of Indian stories called The Leather- 
Stocking Tales , comprising The Deerslayer , The 
Last of the Mohicans , The Pathfinder , The Pioneers , 
and The Prairie , Cooper himself considered the 
best of his novels. They take their name from one 
of the characters, Leather-Stocking, who with vari¬ 
ous other nicknames figures in each book. Many 
critics consider The Last of the Mohicans the 
best of the series, and the best of all Cooper’s 
works. 

Of his sea stories The Red Rover , as a whole, 
heads the list, although The Pilot has some scenes 
— those describing storm and battle — which com¬ 
pare well with like scenes in any other book. 

The chief merits of Cooper’s novels are the star¬ 
tling adventures which crowd his pages, and the 
descriptions of nature. He shows great love for 
woods, lakes, rivers, and sea, and is in his element 
in picturing a storm. The wholesome, manly tone 
of his stories also adds to their value. His charac¬ 
ters are not often lifelike, although some, as Harvey 
Birch, the spy, Hawkeye, the scout, and Long 


EDGAR ALLAN POE 


51 


Tom Coffin, the old whaler, have gained a worthy 
place among the notables of fiction. 

Simms and Cooke. — In the South we find two 
novelists, William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), of 
South Carolina, and John Esten Cooke (1830-1886), 
of Virginia, writing in much the same style as 
Cooper. Their novels tell tales of love and adven¬ 
ture amid scenes of border and colonial life, and 
they found many readers in their day. Simms’s 
best romance is The Yemassee (1835). The Vir¬ 
ginia Comedians (1854) is considered Cooke’s best 
work. These novels are fast fading into the back¬ 
ground of oblivion ; but the writings of one South¬ 
erner, Edgar Allan Poe, grow in importance with 
each succeeding year. 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), perhaps the most 
artistic of the greater writers of America, was born 
in Boston, where his parents, who were actors from 
Maryland, were fulfilling a theatrical engagement. 
Left an orphan at an early age, he was adopted 
by Mr. Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, a wealthy 
man, who took the child to England and had him 
educated for five years in a school a few miles 
from London. On his return to America he entered 
the University of Virginia, where he showed 
a brooding disposition, an imaginative tempera¬ 
ment, and a wayward will. He developed gam¬ 
bling habits, and Mr. Allan took him from college 
and placed him in his office. But work in a 
countingroom proved irksome, so Poe left home 
and went to Boston, where he published a volume 


52 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


of poems and enlisted in the army. Later, through 
Mr. Allan and other friends, he secured an ap¬ 
pointment at West Point, but he remained there 
only-a few months. 

During these years of early manhood Poe felt 
strongly that he was a poet. In one of his letters 
he declares: “ I am a poet, if deep worship of all 
beauty can make me one.” He now settled in 
Baltimore and began in earnest his literary career. 
His first decided success was not poetry, however, 
but a prose tale, A Manuscript Found in a Bottle , 
for which he gained a prize of one hundred dollars 
offered by a magazine called The Saturday Visitor. 
For this magazine he continued to write; in 1835 
he went to Richmond, where he became editor of 
The Southern Literary Messenger; and after a 
time we find him doing journalistic work in Phila¬ 
delphia and New York. In 1845 his famous poem, 
The Raven, was published, winning an immediate 
popularity never before equaled by any great 
poem. 

During the rest of his life Poe was connected 
in various capacities with different periodicals. 
Willis employed him on The Mirror; he became 
editor and owner of The Broadway Journal; 
he wrote stories, poems, and literary criticisms. 
But he was never successful financially. Poverty 
clutched him like a demon, and worn down by 
worry and intemperate habits, he was often 
extremely wretched. His last years were spent 
at Fordham, one of the suburbs of New York, 



















































EDGAR ALLAN POE 


53 


and there his beautiful wife, Virginia, died in 
great want. 

Poe’s Poetry includes only a few poems, but the 
best of these — among which are The Raven , 
Ulalume , and The Haunted Palace — are of the 
highest rank. His views about poetry were pecul¬ 
iar, and at variance with those of his American con¬ 
temporaries. He believed a true poem must be 
short; that it should elevate the soul, and that it 
can best do this through appealing to man's sense 
of the beautiful. Indeed, he defined poetry as 
“the rhythmical creation of beauty.” Carrying 
out these ideas in his own poems, he gives us beau¬ 
tiful word pictures and beautiful harmony of sound; 
but he does not give us ideas or words of wisdom. 
Instead, we have moods and impressions, and there¬ 
fore many critics call his poems vague and vision¬ 
ary. They deal with morbid themes, death and 
ruin principally. Yet so perfect is Poe’s art that 
in his best poems he ranks with the great poets of 
all lands and all times. In England his poetry is 
commonly ranked higher than that of any other 
American writer. 

The following selection from The Bells shows 
his weird fancy and his mastery of sound: — 

“ Hear the tolling of the bells — 

Iron bells! 

What a world of solemn thought their melody compels ! 
In the silence of the night 
How we shiver with affright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone ! 


54 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 
Is a groan. 

And the people — ah, the people — 

They that dwell up in the steeple, 

All alone, 

And who tolling, tolling, tolling, 

In that muffled monotone, 

Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone — 

They are neither man nor woman — 

They are neither brute nor human — 

They are ghouls; 

And their king it is who tolls ; 

And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 

Rolls 

A paean from the bells ! 

And his merry bosom swells 
With the paean of the bells ! 

And he dances, and he yells; 

Keeping time, time, time, 

In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the paean of the bells — 

Of the bells: 

Keeping time, time, time, 

In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the throbbing of the bells — 

Of the bells, bells, bells — 

To the sobbing of the bells; 

Keeping time, time, time, 

As he knells, knells, knells, 

In a happy Runic rhyme 
To the rolling of the bells.” 

Poe’s Prose. — In the realm of prose Poe’s critical 
work shows good analytical powers and a refined 
taste. He based his judgments on the laws of 


EDGAR ALLAN POE 


55 


literary art, and was not prejudiced by friendship 
or hope of gain. Following these laws he was able* 
to recognize as geniuses many to whom the literary 
world in general then gave small credit, but whom 
to-day it praises. His essays on The Rationale of 
Verse and The Poetic Principle are still important. 
His Eureka , an essay on the creation of the material 
and spiritual universe, is brilliant and ingenious, 
but founded upon too little knowledge of science 
to be of value. 

Poe’s tales are imaginative and allegorical; some 
are of the nature of detective stories, and others 
work out a scientific principle. The Murders in the 
Rue Morgue and A Descent into the Maelstrom are 
examples of the two latter classes; William Wilson, 
of the allegorical; and The Fall of the House of 
Usher and Ligeia are the highest products of his 
imagination. The Fall of the House of Usher is 
considered flawless in conception and execution, 
and consequently marks the summit of his prose 
art. Wild and terrifying these tales are, and for 
that reason many people in our own country do 
not enjoy them; but they are steadily gaining in 
popularity here, and in France, Spain, and Italy 
they have been greatly admired. 


5<5 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


READING FOR CHAPTER IV 

For further information in regard to the Knickerbocker 
writers (Willis, Halleck, Drake, Paulding), see Barrett Wen¬ 
dell’s Literary History of America, Chapter VI. 

Irving. — Rip Van Winkle and Legend of Sleepy Hollow 
in The Sketch-Book. 

Drake. — The Culprit Fay. 

Bryant. — Thanatopsis, To a Waterfowl, Green River , 
The Death of the Flowers, and others mentioned in the text. 

Cooper. — The Last of the Mohicans . 

Poe. — The Gold Bug, The Fall of the House of' Usher y 
The Raven, The Bells • 


CHAPTER V 


THE NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 

Characteristics.— The New England group of 
writers includes Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, 
Hawthorne, Whittier, Lowell, and Holmes. De¬ 
scendants of the earlier settlers, most of them of 
direct Puritan or Pilgrim ancestry, they show in 
their writings an earnestness of purpose, a depth of 
thought, a questioning of right and wrong, and a 
search for spiritual truth, which one would naturally 
expect from such descent. 

But New England of the nineteenth century was 
no longer the New England of the Puritans. A 
change had come in religious thought which had 
brought about greater liberalism than in the days 
of Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. Not 
that all were affected, — many still clung to the 
stern old beliefs, — but some had broken away from 
the Puritan ideas to a new religious faith, Unitarian- 
ism. Dr. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) was 
the most eloquent and systematic founder of the 
new church, and from his Boston pulpit he preached 
strongly that it is what a person does, and not what 
he professes to believe, that counts for salvation. 

Transcendentalism. — All the great New England 
writers followed more or less closely the broader 
religious thought, except Whittier, who clung to 
57 


58 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


the Quaker belief of his ancestors. Some of them 
extended their thinking into still wider fields and 
were called Transcendentalists. This group of peo¬ 
ple believed that within the mind are certain intui¬ 
tions that transcend , or go beyond, any knowledge 
of truth that can be learned from books or experi¬ 
ence, and that if man will listen to these inward 
voices, his conduct will be correct and his thoughts 
spiritual. 

The Result of the New Thought. — This daring tC 
think outside of the narrow range of ideas set forth 
by the Puritans, led to wide miscellaneous reading. 
German and French philosophy were studied; 
other religions besides the Christian were investi¬ 
gated ; the poetry and fiction of all modern nations 
were seized upon with interest. The result was 
the awakening of New England to a broad intel¬ 
lectual life, and the development of writers who 
had much more feeling for the beautiful and artistic 
than this section had ever known. 

The abolition of slavery in the United States was 
a subject which deeply affected the writers of this 
group. William Lloyd Garrison, through his paper 
The Liberator , kept the subject earnestly before his 
countrymen ; and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, by her 
book called Uncle Tom's Cabin , stirred both North 
and South so powerfully that history reckons it as 
one of the influences which precipitated our Civil 
War. 

The Lyceum. — Temperance reform and the rights 
of woman were two other subjects which becamq 


HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 59 


prominent before i860. Mesmerism and spiritual¬ 
ism also received attention. Plenty of “ideas” 
were therefore afloat, plenty of subjects to be dis¬ 
cussed by lecturer and orator. As some of these 
subjects were not considered appropriate for dis¬ 
cussion in a church, the institution called the 
lyceum was formed. This organization invited 
speakers to discuss various subjects in the Town 
Hall, or other large rooms at its disposal, and at 
stated times held debates on popular themes. The 
lyceum and the subjects which it discussed were 
not confined to New England, but most of the New 
England writers were lyceum lecturers and became 
more widely known because of its existence. Thus 
the lyceum was a means of encouraging literature. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882) was 
the writer who made poetry popular among his 
countrymen, and showed them that beauty of ex¬ 
pression and Puritan ideals of morality may go 
hand in hand. 

His life was one of comparative ease. Portland, 
Maine, was his birthplace, and there in a home 
atmosphere of refinement and love of books he 
grew to manhood. During his course at Bowdoin 
College, his father, who was a lawyer, often urged 
him to become a lawyer also, but the young man 
felt no inclination for this profession. A few 
weeks before the close of his college career he 
wrote home: “ I most eagerly aspire after future 
eminence in literature; my whole soul burns most 
ardently for it, and every thought centers in it.” 


6o 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Fortunately for him, the means that led to a 
gratification of this wish came a few weeks after 
his graduation, when he was offered the professor¬ 
ship of modern languages at Bowdoin. He at once 
set sail for Europe to read the best literature of 
the Old World and prepare himself for his position. 
He was gone three years, studying in France, 
Spain, Italy, and Germany, and then took up his 
duties as teacher. 

In 1833 his first book, a translation from the 
Spanish, was published, as well as Oiitre-Mer> de¬ 
scriptive of hjs travels on the other side of the 
ocean. 

In 1834 Longfellow was asked to become pro¬ 
fessor’ of modern languages at Harvard, and again 
he went to Europe to prepare for the position. 
This time he visited several new countries; spent 
nearly six months in Stockholm and Copenhagen, 
reading the Swedish, Finnish, and Danish lan¬ 
guages ; and then went to Holland, where his wife 
died. 

Soon after taking up his duties as professor at 
Harvard, Longfellow went to live in the Craigie 
house at Cambridge, which had once been Wash¬ 
ington’s headquarters, and there he resided until 
his death. He wrote industriously, and in 1839 
published a prose work called Hyperion , which, 
gave a veiled account of his meeting in Switzer¬ 
land with Miss Fanny Appleton, who became his 
second wife in 1843. 

The graciousness of Longfellow’s manners, his 










HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 6l 


sympathy and kindliness of spirit, made him hosts 
of friends both in the classroom and outside. As 
his fame as a poet increased, this group was en¬ 
larged by admirers from a distance, who made 
pilgrimages to visit him or showered letters upon 
him. He made several later trips to Europe, was 
received in the best society there, and was honored 
by degrees from the universities of Cambridge and 
Oxford in England. 

Longfellow as a Writer. — Besides Outre-Mer and 
Hyperion , Longfellow wrote another prose work 
called Kavanagh; but his position in literature 
depends upon his poetry rather than his prose. 

Longfellow’s verse is simple, graceful, and 
peasant to read. It can be easily understood, 
and because of this he attained wide popularity. 
He has a happy faculty of expressing moral 
truths, as in The Psalm of Life and St. Augustine's 
Ladder , so that they find an echo in every heart. 
In this way he has helped humanity, and because 
of this help he deserves to be called great, though 
he falls short of many of the qualities which the 
critics require of a master poet. His feelings are 
not intense; he does not cry out fiercely against 
human wrongs, but he rather comforts and con¬ 
soles and teaches a large patience. 

Longfellow’s Poems. — Many of his earlier poems 
were translations or verses suggested by his Euro¬ 
pean travels, and because of this his countrymen 
complained that his poetry was not American. 
But there was no question of his home interests 


62 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


after 1847, when Evangeline appeared, founded on 
a tradition of American history, telling a pathetic 
story of love, with scenes laid in Nova Scotia and 
various parts of the United States. The delight¬ 
ful domestic pictures in this story, the beautiful 
descriptions of landscape, the smooth melodious 
verse, all combined to make the poem exceed¬ 
ingly popular, and it is reckoned as Longfellow’s 
best. 

Hiawatha appeared in 1855, and tells in odd 
verse, copying that of a Finnish poem, the legends 
of some of the Indian tribes who lived on the 
borders of Lake Superior. This was a great con¬ 
tribution to American literature, not only because 
it brings one into close feeling for things Indian 
and American, — the birch canoe, the eagle, the 
deer, and the forest,—but because of the inter¬ 
est of the stories which are told with so much 
charm. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish is another 
American tradition put into pleasing verse. Long¬ 
fellow himself was a descendant of the Priscilla 
and John Alden who figure in this poem, and was 
probably doubly interested in the story on this 
account. In fact, Longfellow’s most popular and 
best poems have American subjects. Other not¬ 
able examples are Paul Revere 1 s Ride and The 
Building of the Ship . The strong lines at the 
close of the latter read like the utterance of an 
impassioned orator and have roused many a one 
to patriotic fervor: — 


HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 63 


“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State t 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
***** 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 

’Tis of the wave and not the rock; 

’Tis but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest’s roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o’er our fears, 

Are all with thee — are all with thee ! ” 

Dramas. — Longfellow’s attempts at writing 
dramas were not very successful. The Spanish 
Student is his best work of this class, and the 
Golden Legend has considerable interest because 
of its blending of old legends, plays, and scenes 
of the Middle Ages. It tells the story of Elsie, 
who was willing to sacrifice her own life to save 
that of Prince Henry. Other dramas are The 
Masque of Pandora f The Divine Tragedy , Judas 
Maccabceus , and Michael Angelo. 

Sonnets. — For the perfection of Longfellow’s 
work we must turn to his sonnets. These are not 
so well known as most of his other poems, for the 
sonnet is a form of verse which appeals only to 
the cultured few. But when we open the transla¬ 
tion of Dante’s Divine Comedy , which Longfellow 


6 4 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


made in his old age, we find as introductions six 
sonnets of the finest workmanship. Others are 
among his miscellaneous poems. The choicest 
one is entitled Nature. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was the deep¬ 
est thinker of the New England group, and in fact 
the deepest thinker that America has yet produced. 

He came of a long line of Puritan ministers, 
seven we are told. His father, no longer Puritan 
but Unitarian, the minister of the First Parish, 
Boston, died young, and left his family in poverty. 
Consequently Emerson’s early years were spent 
amid many privations, not the least of which was 
being obliged to take turns with his brother in 
wearing the one overcoat which they possessed. 
There were chores to do both in the house and 
out, for his mother kept boarders; there was no 
money to spend for trifles, and not even a sled 
on which to slide down Beacon Hill. 

But he was fond of books, and like the rest of 
his family, never wavered from the thought that 
he must have an education. He began his school 
life at the age of two, and when he was four¬ 
teen entered Harvard. There he was reserved and 
solitary in habits. “A chamber alone,” he later 
wrote, “ that was the best thing I found at col¬ 
lege.” In this room by himself he read what books 
he pleased and practiced composition, especially 
the writing of poetry. He gained two prizes for 
literary work, but did not distinguish himself other¬ 
wise. 


RALPH WALDO EMERSON 


65 


After graduation he taught for a while, but find¬ 
ing the work distasteful, prepared for the ministry, 
married, and accepted a charge in Boston which 
he held three years. At the end of this time 
his ideas in regard to certain clmrch ordinances 
led him to resign, and his health^being impaired, 
he went to Europe. On his return he lectured 
and preached at various places. In 1834 he 
settled at Concord, Massachusetts, which had 
been his grandfather’s home, and there he lived 
the rest of his life. He spent his time writing, 
taking daily strolls in woods and fields, lectur¬ 
ing, and preaching on Sundays wherever oppor¬ 
tunity offered. 

Emerson early became the acknowledged leader 
of the Transcendentalists. Lowell tells of the 
intense delight with which his audiences listened 
to him: — 

“Was it all transcendentalism? magic-lantern pictures on 
mist? As you will. Those then were what we wanted. But 
it was not so. The delight and the benefit were that he put 
us in communication with a larger style of thought . . . gave 
us ravishing glimpses of an ideal . . . made us conscious of 
the supreme and everlasting originality of whatever bit of soul 
might be in any of us. . . . Did they say he was discon¬ 
nected? So were the stars, that seemed larger to our eyes, 
still keen with that excitement, as we walked homeward 
with prouder stride over the creaking snow. . . . Were we 
enthusiasts ? I hope and believe we were, and am thankful 
to the man who made us worth something for once in our 
lives. ... I have heard some great speakers and some 
accomplished orators, but never any that so moved and per¬ 
suaded men as he.” 


66 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


As a lecturer, Emerson found his calling. He 
had a very agreeable voice in speaking, and his 
high-bred manners added to his charm. In 1847 
he was invited to talk in certain English cities, 
where he made an excellent impression by his sin¬ 
cerity and elevation of thought. Later he lectured 
in the West and South and went again to Europe. 
Many honors now came to him from different 
universities and societies both in Europe and in 
America. His lectures were published in book 
form, and his fame as a writer was unquestioned. 

In his old age his faculties were much impaired, 
so that he rarely went from home or saw visitors. 
But the Sage of Concord, as he was called, was 
greatly respected and beloved by his townspeople, 
who, on his death, sincerely mourned him. He 
was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Con¬ 
cord, where a rough bowlder marks his grave. 

Emerson’s Writings consist of both prose and 
poetry, but it is through his prose that he has the 
greatest influence. It is not in style of composi¬ 
tion that it excels, for in general the ideas are 
not well arranged ; but it is great because of its 
thought. Emerson was a philosopher who uttered 
some of the grandest, most helpful truths. These 
he flashed forth without much amplification, desir¬ 
ing chiefly to arouse and stimulate his hearers, 
rather than to give them a perfected system of 
ideas. 

His essays are collected in eleven volumes, 
which bear various titles, as : Nature , Representa - 









RALPH WALDO EMERSON 


67 


five Men , Conduct of Life , Society and Solitude. 
He believed in independent thinking, and in 
living up to the highest that is in one: “that if 
the single man plant himself indomitably on his 
instincts, and there abide, the huge world will 
come round to him that we should walk on 
our own feet, work with our own hands, and speak 
our own minds, and that if one does these things, 
“a nation of men will for the first time exist.” 
These ideas were brought out with a startling 
newness of expression in an address entitled The 
American Scholar , delivered before the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society of Harvard University, in 1837, 
and they were reiterated throughout his later writ¬ 
ings. He further believed that character is higher 
than intellect, that “ a great soul will be strong to 
live as well as strong to think.” He intensely 
loved nature, and believed that man, through soli¬ 
tary communings in field and forest, found his 
God. 

Emerson sometimes wrote with considerable 
fervor and eloquence. His thoughts are always 
hopeful for the individual as well as the nation. 
The reason men have low ideals is because they 
have not been properly taught: “wake them, and 
they shall quit the false gods and leap to the 
true.” He sees in the future a time “ when the 
sluggard intellect of this continent will look from 
under its iron lids and fill the postponed expecta¬ 
tion of the world with something better than the 
exertions of mechanical skill.” He has a joy in 


68 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


the dignity and necessity of labor, and calls that 
man great who can move other men to think and 
do great things. 

Emerson’s Poetry is filled with the same ideas as 
his prose. It is thoughtful rather than passionate, 
and like his prose often fails to give a fully de¬ 
veloped idea. He had an imperfect ear for music, 
and his verse sometimes halts and even seems 
no verse at all; but at times it moves with pure 
joyousness and freedom, and in richness of ideas 
it is always fully satisfying. His noble Concord 
Hymn beginning, — 

“ By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 

And fired the shot heard round the world,”— 

inscribed on the base of the statue of the minute- 
man who guards the bridge at Concord, will be re¬ 
membered as long as America exists as a republic. 
And The Rhodora is worthy to stand with the best 
short poems in the language. 

The Rhodora 

On being Asked, “ Whence is the Flower?” 

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 

I found the fresh rhodora in the woods, 

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 

To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 

The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 

Made the black water with their beauty gay; 

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool r 
And court the flower that cheapens his array. 


HENRY DAVID THOREAU 


69 


Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: 

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose ! 

I never thought to ask, I never knew: 

But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 

The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. 

This blending of God and nature is a striking 
characteristic of Emerson’s poetry. God is an 
energy that searches through all nature — 

u From Chaos to the dawning morrow; 

Into all our human plight, 

The soul’s pilgrimage and flight; 

In city or in solitude, 

Step by step, lifts bad to good, 

Without halting, without rest, 

Lifting Better up to Best.” 

Emerson’s was a great soul, with an imperfect 
utterance in both prose and poetry. 

Henry David Thoreau (1817— 1862), the lover of 
nature and the apostle of simplicity, was born at 
Concord, Massachusetts. His father was of 
French descent, a quiet man, maker of good lead 
pencils. From him Thoreau seems to have de¬ 
rived a certain gravity of conduct, for among his 
school fellows he earned the title of “ judge.” 

At sixteen he entered Harvard, where his inde¬ 
pendence of thought kept him aloof from the 
general college life and he was known as unsocial. 
He kept a “ private journal, or recQrd of thoughts, 
feelings, studies, and daily experience,” in order to 


70 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


note his development, and through this journal he 
had an introduction to Emerson, who became his 
lifelong friend. Thoreau’s sister, reading the 
journal, discovered in it an idea identical with one 
in a recently delivered lecture by Emerson, and 
the fact was communicated to the great Tran 
scendentalist, who sought an interview with the 
young man who seemed so promising. 

After leaving college Thoreau taught with his 
brother in the Concord Academy, but soon gave 
up teaching, as he did not believe in corporal 
punishment, and without it the school seemed to 
be demoralized. During the rest of his life he 
labored whenever he needed to get money—made 
pencils, built boats and fences, or surveyed land. 
He published poems and essays in The Dial , a 
magazine issued by a group of Transcendental- 
ists. He had always been a Transcendentalist at 
heart, but his natural inclination was doubtless 
strengthened by his intimacy with Emerson, in 
whose household he lived in various capacities at 
different times. 

But Thoreau devoted himself principally to the 
study of nature, taking long walks and distant ex¬ 
cursions, one up the Merrimac River, several into 
the Maine woods and to Cape Cod. His interest 
in everything wild was remarkable, and was re¬ 
paid in a manner very satisfactory to him: fish 
would swim into his hands, birds light upon his 
hat, and the animals of the forest come to him with 
confidence. 


HENRY DAVID THOREAU 71 

In 1845, at the age of twenty-seven, he built him¬ 
self a hut on the shore of Walden Pond, a mile 
from any Concord neighbor, and there he lived in 
what he considered the proper way for intellectual 
and spiritual development The Transcendental- 
ists all thought that civilized society was organized 
on wrong lines, and they had made several experi¬ 
ments in forming ideal communities, notably the 
one at Brook Farm. But Thoreau did not wish to 
live in a community. Society was what he wished 
to avoid. During more than two years he lived 
by himself, working a few hours each day if he 
considered it necessary, and spending much time 
in observing nature, meditating, reading, and 
writing. For though Thoreau loved nature, he 
loved books too; throughout his life he kept up 
his interest in old Greek and Latin works, and 
prized highly the philosophers and poets of Persia 
and India, whom he read in French and German 
translations. He never read novels because he 
said he found no real life in them. 

After this experiment at Walden, during which 
he said his soul grew “like corn in the night,” 
Thoreau lived much as previously, working some¬ 
times and lecturing occasionally. He died of con¬ 
sumption at his father’s house in Concord when 
only forty-four. 

Thoreau’s Writings consist of passages from the 
journal which, begun during his college career, 
he continued throughout his whole life. In this 
he noted all the various aspects of nature, and 


72 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


recorded also the thoughts which nature and re¬ 
flection inspired. This journal made thirty large 
volumes, but only certain portions of it have been 
published. 

His first published book (1847) was called A 
Week 011 the Concord and Merrimack Rivers , and 
tells of a row-boat excursion which he and his 
brother made together. It shows Thoreau’s keen 
eye for all details of landscape, his vividness in 
description, his thoughts on many subjects, but 
especially his delight in nature. As they floated 
along, “the world seemed decked for some holi¬ 
day or prouder pageantry, with silken streamers 
flying, and the course of our lives to wind on be¬ 
fore us like a green lane into a country maze, at 
the season when fruit-trees are' in blossom.’* 

Walden (1854) is his most famous book. It 
tells why he went to live at Walden Pond, of the 
building of his house, of the cost of his living, of 
the sights and sounds in his neighborhood, of his 
visitors, and of the high thoughts that came to him 
there. He believed in going deeply into matters; 
in reading books of wisdom; in throwing aside 
the superfluities of life and thereby gaining time 
and money for the things that count for man’s 
higher development. “ Simplify, simplify,” he 
says. “ Instead of three meals a day, if it be nec¬ 
essary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, 
five; and reduce other things in proportion.” He 
thought a man should not live in the conventional 
way and do the conventional thing just because 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 


73 

other men did so. He should be individual, fol¬ 
low his dreams, and thus be happy. 

Thoreau had the ability to take the most com¬ 
mon subject and make it interesting and often 
beautiful through the quickening power of the 
imagination. Sometimes his paragraphs are truly 
poetic, and figures of speech rich, vigorous, and 
original are abundant. A subtle, dry humor is 
also a characteristic of his style. His sentences 
are frequently short and packed full of meaning; 
but as one of his biographers says, “with all his 
simplicity and directness of speech, he has an un¬ 
conscious, almost mystic eloquence which stamps 
him unmistakably as an inspired writer, a man of 
true and rare genius.” 

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864), the greatest 
creative genius in literature that America has yet 
produced, was born in the old witch-haunted town 
of Salem, Massachusetts. Some of his ancestors, 
who were stern Puritans, took part in the witch 
trials of long ago, and Hawthorne’s immediate 
family felt in consequence that a curse lay upon 
them. 

His father, a sea captain, died when Hawthorne 
was four years old, and his mother ever afterward 
lived in retirement, showing a disposition which her 
illustrious son surely inherited. For though when 
a boy Hawthorne liked to fish and skate, he liked 
often to be alone, to stay all night by himself in a 
lonely hut in the Maine woods, where he lived for 
a time with his uncle. And after his college 


7 4 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


career at Bowdoin, when he was again living at 
Salem, he preferred to shut himself away from the 
world for twelve years, to eat his meals in solitude 
in his own room, and to go out only at night. 
During these years while he lived the life of a 
recluse in Salem, he read and pondered. He had 
resolved to make literature his profession and 
wrote a number of stories and sketches, but they 
failed to find a publisher. 

In 1839 h e accepted an appointment in the 
Boston Custom House, but life there was too irk¬ 
some. The Transcendentalists were just then 
preparing for an ideal community at Brook Farm, 
not far from Boston, and Hawthorne joined them. 
For a year he milked cows, hoed the garden, 
talked philosophy, and dreamed, in company with 
the men and women who made up the Brook 
Farm circle. Then he returned to Salem, married, 
and went to Concord. Here he lived in the Old 
Manse, close by the Concord River which Thoreau 
loved so well, and near the bridge where the first 
battle of the Revolution was fought. By this time 
he had attained some literary recognition. His 
stories had not only been printed in the magazines, 
but collected in book form, bearing the title Twice- 
Told Tales. While living in Concord he wrote a 
new series of tales and sketches, called Mosses from 
an Old Manse. 

In 1846 he was again in a custom house, this 
time in Salem. Here he found material for The 
Scarlet Letter , the first romance that brought him 





















' 

































- ■ 







NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 


75 


worldwide fame. From 1850 to 1852 he lived at 
Lenox, busily writing all the time and publishing 
The House of the Seven Gables. Then he bought in 
Concord the place called Wayside, which was his 
home for the rest of his life, though he actually 
lived there only a few years. In 1853 he was ap¬ 
pointed consul to Liverpool, and a decided change 
came in his hitherto uneventful life. He now had 
an opportunity to see Europe. He traveled con¬ 
siderably in England, and after resigning his 
consulship in 1856, went to Italy for several 
years. He returned to America in i860, and died 
four years afterward. 

Hawthorne’s Works consist mainly of fiction. 
He wrote four completed romances— The Scarlet 
Letter , The Blithedale Romance , The House of the 
Seven Gables , and The Marble Faun — and the 
collections of sketches and stories called Twice- 
Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse. He 
wrote also for children most delightful stories from 
mythology, history, and biography, called Tangle- 
wood Tales , Grandfather s Chair , and Biographical 
Stories. 

Of works not fiction, Our Old Home , descriptive 
of Hawthorne’s life in England, and his French 
and Italian Note-Books and American Note-Books 
are the most important. 

Hawthorne as a Novelist. — Hawthorne’s strength 
as a novelist lies in his imagination and his skill in 
working out a problem of the human conscience. 
There is an unusual thoughtfulness in his writings, 


76 


MERICAN LITERATURE 


beneath situation and incidents there usually lies 
an idea which he is trying to unfold in an allegoric 
way. In most cases that idea is connected with 
human wrongdoing, with sin in some form: it is 
because of the sin of condemning a poor man to be 
hanged for witchcraft, that the Pyncheon family in 
The House of the Seven Gables , like Hawthorne’s 
own, is followed for generations by misfortune; it 
is because of sin that Donatello in The Marble 
Faun changes his nature. This working out of the 
problem is done with artistic and poetic feeling. 
Light and shade are skillfully managed to suit 
mood and scene. The words which frame his 
thoughts are perfectly adapted to them, and so 
harmoniously arranged that his style is exquisite. 
Thus Hawthorne is both moralist and artist. 

Hawthorne is not clever in sketching characters 
in the way that many a novelist is. His characters 
seem vague, visionary, mere pictures often, rather 
than human beings, but this is because he wished 
to show us souls rather than bodies, and so spent 
little time in describing externals — appearances, 
peculiarities, or manner of speech — unless .they 
in some way were indicative of character. 

It is because Hawthorne made this deeper study 
of mankind, and because his imagination is often 
weird and fantastic, that some people think him 
morbid and gloomy. He says of himself that he 
is a student of human life, and that is what he 
surely is, catching an underlying meaning from 
what seem trivial events, and finding a glory and 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 


77 


a beauty in many a somber character. He is at¬ 
tracted, it is true, by situations of unhappiness, but 
in dealing with them he shows his genius and the 
depth of his own mind. He is no pessimist, as 
some would have us believe; but through shadow 
and darkness and sin — if we interpret him aright 
— he leads to hope and light. 

Critics differ in the choice of Hawthorne’s best 
novel, but nearly all agree that it is not The Blithe- 
dale Romance. This story is founded on Haw¬ 
thorne’s experience at Brook Farm, and is sup¬ 
posed to portray Margaret Fuller in the character 
of Zenobia. It is modern in tone, and contains 
some delightfully realistic humorous touches, 
though it ends in the tragic drowning of Zenobia. 

The scene of The Marble Faun is mainly in 
Rome, and was suggested by Hawthorne’s resi¬ 
dence in Italy. Donatello’s ancestral mansion is 
the one occupied by Hawthorne himself just out¬ 
side of Florence. It is said that the book is read 
by all English-speaking visitors to Rome, as much 
for its historic as artistic charm. 

The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven 
Gables are New England stories, the former show¬ 
ing life in the colonial times, and the latter dealing 
with Hawthorne’s own time. The Scarlet Letter 
is often called his masterpiece. No finer chapters 
can be found in all literature than certain of the 
chapters in these two books : for instance, chapter 
xvi in The House of the Seven Gables , where by a 
wonderful grouping of details Hawthorne produces 




AMERICAN LITERATURE 


the gloomy picture which is artistically fit to fore¬ 
shadow the death of Judge Pyncheon. And then, 
too, that masterly chapter xviii, in the same 
book, where he describes Judge Pyncheon sitting 
dead in the oaken chair! All of Hawthorne’s 
strong characteristics combine in this chapter, but 
especially are seen his irony and weird fancy, as he 
taunts the dead Judge with his inability to move or 
think, imagines ghosts moving about the room, and 
tells how startled the little mouse is “ which sits on 
its hind legs, in a streak of moonlight, close by 
Judge Pyncheon’s foot, and seems to meditate a 
journey of exploration over this great black bulk.” 
It is a cat looking in at the window which has 
startled the mouse, and Hawthorne adds: “This 
grimalkin has a very ugly. look. Is it a cat watch¬ 
ing for a mouse, or the devil for a human soul ? ” 
It is strange fancies like these that make Hawthorne 
unique in American literature. 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807— 1 892) was born 
near the town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, in a 
farmhouse shut in on three sides by woods. Not 
another human dwelling was in sight, and here, 
with country sounds and country sights about him, 
grew up the boy who throughout his manhood was 
to sing so clearly of New England life. He did 
the ordinary work about the farm, milked the 
cows and mowed the grass, and attended the vil¬ 
lage school in winter. He was brought up in the 
Quaker faith7 and hence is commonly called the 
Quaker Poet. 


JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 


79 


He wrote poetry when a mere boy, being in¬ 
spired by a copy of Burns which his schoolmaster 
lent him, and at seventeen some of his verses were 
printed in William Lloyd Garrison’s paper, pub¬ 
lished not far from his home. Through these 
verses Garrison became interested in the youth, 
and urged his father to give him the best educa¬ 
tion possible. There was little money available, 
but by working at shoemaking Whittier managed 
to attend the Haverhill Academy half a year. 
Then he went into newspaper work, first in Bos¬ 
ton, then in Haverhill, Hartford, and Philadelphia, 
sometimes as a contributor, sometimes as an editor. 

He became interested in politics and in all meas¬ 
ures for the uplifting of man. He threw himself 
with much zeal into the antislavery cause, and 
several times was in great danger from infuriated 
mobs. Later he wrote : “ I cannot be sufficiently 
thankful to the Divine Providence that so early 
called my attention to the great interests of hu¬ 
manity, saving me from the poor ambitions and 
miserable jealousies of a selfish pursuit of literary 
reputation.” In these days of struggle for slave 
and freeman he wrote the thoughts that the hour 
needed, and did not strive for literary art. 

Whittier wrote both prose and poetry, but it was 
through his poems that he touched the hearts of 
the people most forcibly, as well as satisfied the 
critics. The last years of his life were spent at 
Amesbury and Danvers, in Massachusetts, in the 
financial ease which came from the large sale of 


So 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


his poems. He never married, but was fortunate 
in having pleasant relatives to make his home life 
happy. Trips were often made in summer to the 
White Mountains, the Isles of Shoals, or to Maine, 
but on account of the nervous headaches which 
were his lifelong enemy, Whittier disliked travel 
and remained at home most of the time. In spite 
of much ill-health, however, he lived to be nearly 
eighty-six. 

Whittier’s Poetry is filled with the true American 
spirit. It speaks strongly for political and religious 
freedom and for that bravery of soul which dares to 
do the right in face of danger. It sings the songs 
of labor, and upholds the true worth of the individ¬ 
ual no matter what his outward circumstances. It 
bursts forth into indignation at oppression of any 
kind, and shows firm faith in the power of God to 
right all wrong. In form it is often too diffuse,— 
for Whittier did not always know when to stop or 
how to concentrate his ideas, — yet, at its best, it 
has an earnestness and forceful eloquence which 
move one deeply. 

Some of his poems are purely religious. Many 
relate to the antislavery struggle: these are col¬ 
lected under the title, Voices of Freedom. Of those 
written in war time Barbara Frietchie is the most 
popular. 

But Whittier wrote on a great variety of subjects. 
He delighted in old legends of New England — 
The Wreck of Rivermouth, Abraham Davenport , 
Nauhaught , the Deacon , The Changeling , Cassandra 






























































































































































JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 


81 


Southwick —stories in which Indians, Quakers, 
witches, and Puritans figure. Cassandra South¬ 
wick, the story of a poor Quaker maiden who was 
condemned to slavery and exile because of her 
religion, illustrates many of Whittier’s characteris¬ 
tics, particularly his faith in God. 

' x The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay his hand upon the 
strong. 

* * * * * , * 

But let the humble ones arise — the poor in heart be glad, 
And let the mourning ones again with robes of praise be clad, 
For He who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the stormy 
wave, 

And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to save.” 

Whittier had a faith which, to use his own words, 
“on the midnight sky of rain” could “paint the 
golden morrow.” 

The short story in verse, commonly called the 
ballad, was Whittier’s most natural mode of expres¬ 
sion. His Maud Muller , Mary Garvin, Margue¬ 
rite, The Witch's Daughter, Skipper Ire son s Ride, 
everybody knows. But the ballad entitled Tell¬ 
ing the Bees, though read by fewer persons, is 
his finest poem of this class. It is pervaded by 
the quietness and the sadness of the death which 
is announced at its close; it gives a picture of the 
“ tender light of a day that is dead,” in tones so 
harmonious, in language so simply beautiful, that 
the poem deserves to rank among the artistic gems 
of the world : — 


8 2 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


11 And the chore-girl still 

Sung to the bees stealing out and in. 

a And the song she was singing ever since 
In my ear sounds on : — 

* Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 

Mistress Mary is dead and gone.’ ” 

Whittier’s Ichabod , in which he denounces Dan 
iel Webster for not keeping true to his principles, 
is one of his strongest short poems. Lines like 
these could not fail to touch the great orator to the 
quick, as biography says they did : — 

“ So fallen ! so lost! the light withdrawn 
Which once he wore ! 

The glory from his gray hairs gone 
Forevermore! 

***** 

“ Of all we loved and honored, naught 
Save power remains, — 

A fallen angel’s pride of thought, 

Still strong in chains. 

“ All else is gone ; from those great eyes 
The soul has fled: 

When faith is lost, when honor dies, 

The man is dead 1 ” 

But it is in scenes of everyday life that Whittier 
has his greatest charm for the many. His Snow- 
Bound , a picture of winter on the farm where he 
was born, has been read by thousands, and his 
Barefoot Boy “with cheek of tan” and “merry 
whistled tunes ” is so lifelike and familiar that he 


JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 


83 


seems a child of our own acquaintance. In these 
homely scenes of New England life Whittier has 
done his best work, and it is work that has been 
worthily praised. In School Days , which belongs 
to this group, gives a picture so realistic, so tender 
in feeling, so harmonious in detail, that Matthew 
Arnold has called it a perfect poem, and Alfred 
Tennyson has spoken the same praise of My 
Playmate. 

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) is a brilliant 
and original writer who clearly represents in both 
his life and his writings American ideals of thought 
and action. 

He came of the best New England stock, of a 
family which had settled in Massachusetts in 1639, 
noted in each generation for practical sense, liberal 
thought, and earnest character. His father was a 
clergyman with a large parish in Boston, but he 
lived, not in Boston, but just across the river on a 
delightful estate in Cambridge, and there Lowell 
was born. His mother and his mother’s family 
were fond of poetry and legend, and read Shake¬ 
speare and Spenser to the child as they rocked 
him in his cradle. An anecdote tells of his delight 
in this performance, and of his vainly trying at the 
age of three to keep awake that he might listen 
longer to the music of The Faerie Queene. 

It is almost needless to say that the boy was 
well educated. He was graduated from Harvard 
College at a time when literature was the all- 
absorbing study there, and to literature Lowell 


8 4 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


gave his chief attention through life. He studied 
law, however, and was admitted to the bar, but he 
never practiced. In 1841 he published his first 
volume of poems. In 1844 he married Maria 
White, whose literary talents and sympathy 
strengthened his natural inclination for writing. 
It was about the time of his marriage that he 
wrote: — 


u I am a maker and a poet; 

I feel it and I know it.” 

For some time Lowell had been sending both 
prose and poetry to the periodicals of the day, but 
as a dollar a page was then considered large pay 
for a magazine writer, he eked out a livelihood by 
lecturing on various subjects, but chiefly on those 
pertaining to literature. Twelve lectures which he 
delivered in Boston in 1855 on the English poets 
are especially remembered. They were given both 
afternoon and evening, and still crowds were 
turned away from the door of the Lowell Institute, 
where he spoke. 

In 1857, after some months of preparatory study 
in Europe, Lowell became professor of modern 
languages at Harvard, and also editor of The 
Atlantic Monthly. From 1864 to 1873 he edited 
the North American Review. In 1877 he entered 
public life by going first to Spain as minister, and 
then to England. In both countries his integrity 
of character and sound common sense won respect 
for both him and his nation. 


JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 


85 


Lowell’s Poetry shows great force and humor. 
His. humor, especially, made a decided hit in the 
two series of poems called The Biglow Papers. 
These are written in Yankee dialect, plentifully 
besprinkled with “wuz” and “sech” and “ain’t,” 
and in the first series purport to be the views of 
Hosea Biglow on the Mexican War, which was 
then in progress. These views are expressed in no 
half-hearted way: — 

“ Ez fer war, I call it murder, — 

There you hev it plain an 1 flat; 

I don’t want to go no furder 
Than my Testyment fer that; 

God hez sed so, plump and fairly, 

It’s ez long ez it is broad, 

An’ you’ve gut to git up airly 
Ef you want to take in God.” 

The patriotism and moral fervor which The 
Biglow Papers display, as well as their humor, 
made them widely quoted in the North, and 
stamped Lowell as a knight of antislavery. When 
he wrote The Vision of Sir Launfal , to express 
still further his views on justice and the brother¬ 
hood of man, he not only deepened the impression 
that he was a champion of human rights, but also 
made it evident that he was an intense lover of 
nature; for his pictures of summer and winter in 
the preludes to Sir Launfal are full of details that 
could come only from the heart of a sympathetic 
observer. 


86 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Love of nature is, in fact, one of Lowell’s strong¬ 
est characteristics. Under the Willows is so full 
of it that one pities and envies the poet. To the 
Dandelion also is brimful of this delight, and added 
to it is the feeling, never absent from his poetry, 
of the worth that dwells in every human heart. 
This faith makes him hopeful of the future, when 
things — 

“ sullen, slow, and dumb 
Shall leap to music and to light.” 

when 

“ Life of itself shall dance and play, 

Fresh blood in Time’s shrunk veins make mirth, 

And labor meet delight half-way.” 

He loves the brave man who, in the cause of 
freedom and justice, will fight with arms, if neces- 
• sary, or speak boldly his opinion. In the noble 
Commemoration Ode , written in memory of the 
Harvard College students who were killed in th? 
Civil War, he says : — 

“To front a lie in arms and not to yield, 

This shows, methinks, God’s plan 
And measure of a stalwart man, 

Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 

Who stands self-poised on manhood’s solid earth. 
Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 

Fed from within with all the strength he needs.” 

And again, in Stanzas on Freedom : —. 

“ They are slaves who fear to speak 
For the fallen and the weak; 




















' . 























. 



















* 




























JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 


87 


They are slaves who will not choose 
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 

Rather than in silence shrink 
From the truth they needs must think; 

They are slaves' who dare not be 
In the right with two or three.” 

Force, humor, moral fervor, love for man and 
nature, faith in God, then, mark Lowell’s poetry, 
i It is not always perfect in form, — ideas are not 
j always so connected and developed as to make 
an artistic whole, — but often there are passages 
of exquisite beauty. 

Lowell’s Prose consists of many antislavery 
papers, and of essays on literary and other sub¬ 
jects, collected in volumes entitled Among My 
Books , Fireside Travels , My Study Windows , and 
Old English Dramatists. 

As an essay writer on miscellaneous subjects, 
like My Garden Acquaintance or A Good Word for 
Winter , Lowell is particularly charming. Happy 
allusions, rich humor, a wealth of metaphors 
and other figures of speech, help to make his 
style interesting, vigorous, and delightful. 

As a literary critic he stands in the first rank. 
He is the greatest that America has yet produced, 
and is worthy to stand beside many across the 
water. He knew men and the world as well as 
books, and that gave him particular fitness for his 
task. Not only with wide scholarship, but with 
breadth of sympathy, he discusses authors and 
their works. His views are his own, the result 





88 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


of original research. They are given in no dry, 
pedantic style, but with unconventionality, humor, 
and electric thrills of wit. Lowell’s fame grows 
more firm as the years advance. As a loyal Ameri¬ 
can citizen, as a scholar, a poet, and an essayist, 
his country is proud of his name. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809—1894), one of the 
wittiest writers that America has yet produced, was 
the son of a clergyman. He was born in Cam¬ 
bridge, Massachusetts, was prepared for college at 
Phillips Academy, Andover, and then entered Har¬ 
vard. Soon after his entrance, he wrote the poem 
Old Ironsides , in which, in an ironical manner, he 
pleaded for the preservation of the grand old ship 
Constitution. This poem was published in the 
Boston Advertiser , copied all over the country, and 
not only brought instant fame to Holmes, but saved 
the ship. After this, his literary standing at col¬ 
lege was unquestioned, especially as his scholarship 
was excellent and he was doing a great deal of 
writing for the college periodicals. 

After he was graduated, he studied law one 
year, then turned to the more congenial study of 
medicine, and in order to perfect himself spent 
three years in the hospitals and lecture rooms of 
Paris and Edinburgh. On his return to the United 
States, in 1839, Dr. Holmes was appointed pro¬ 
fessor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth 
College. He married, and practiced medicine in 
Boston. In 1847 he became professor of anatomy 
at Harvard. All the while he found time to write 


OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 89 

essays and poems, and to lecture at lyceums 
throughout the country. 

Holmes’s Poems. — Although a direct descendant 
from Governor Dudley and Anne Bradstreet, the 
Puritan poet, Holmes had a buoyant, lively nature 
which seemed far removed from such stern ances¬ 
try. He was fond of society and good fellowship, 
and in great request as a toastmaster at the dinners 
of the medical staff and his college mates. He 
wrote much of his verse to help the cheer of these 
social gatherings. More than forty poems for his 
college class alone are recorded, the most famous 
of which is The Boys. These poems naturally 
were not of the highest order, but their light humor 
amused the public whenever they were printed, and 
the public seemed to expect from him nothing but 
this kind of verse. 

But Holmes sometimes wrote poems of a differ¬ 
ent class, as Avis, The Voiceless , Under the Willows, 
The Last Leaf\ and The Chambered Nautilus — 
poems with pathos mingled with the humor, or 
serious thought and tender feeling pervading the 
whole; poems on which must rest his claims to be 
really a poet. 

Of sheer humor, The One-Hoss Shay and Parson 
TurrelTs Legacy are the best examples. Content¬ 
ment , The Height of the Ridiculous , and The Ballad 
of the Oysterman are also well known. Amid the 
pleasantry of these poems there is usually a touch 
of genuine feeling which gives them a special 
character. 





90 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Holmes’s Prose.— When The Atlantic Monthly 
was started in 1857, Dr. Holmes contributed to it 
a series of papers called The Autocrat of the Break¬ 
fast Table , representing the Autocrat giving his 
views on matters in general to his companions at a 
boarding-house table. These views were so humor¬ 
ous, so wise, so full of good hits at people’s little 
failings, that they pleased every one. Many of his 
best poems appeared in this work, for the Autocrat 
was poet as well as philosopher. The originality 
and excellence of this series of articles Holmes 
never surpassed. He followed its general plan, 
however, in several later books, The Professor at 
the Breakfast Table , The Poet at the Breakfast 
Table , and Over the Tea Cups. Two novels which 
he wrote, Elsie Venner (1861) and The Guardian 
Angel (1867), illustrate the influence of heredity; 
and though they are not great in either character 
sketching or plot, they give pictures of New Eng¬ 
land village life which are often diverting. They 
have been widely read, and Elsie Venner has been 
dramatized. 


MINOR WRITERS 

There were many minor writers who made a lit¬ 
erary background for the greater writers of New 
England. 

William Wetmore Story (1819-1895), son of Chief 
Justice Story, and a native of Salem, Massachusetts, 
wrote delightfully both prose and poetry. He was 
a sculptor and spent much of his life in Italy, where 


MINOR NEW ENGLAND WRITERS 


91 


the picturesque scenes about him, as well as the 
old legends and myths, took such hold upon his 
fancy that his writings were inspired largely by 
Italian or mythological subjects. His poetry is 
smooth and dreamy, but is generally lacking in 
originality, beauty of expression, and grandeur of 
thought. Pan in Love is one of his best poems. 
Roba di Roma is a prose account of the city of 
Rome. 

Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland (18 1 9— 1 881) was one 
of the most prominent journalists of his time and 
the founder of The Ceiitury Magazine. He wrote 
novels and poems which are gracious and refined 
in spirit and earnest in their moral uplift. His 
poems Bitter-sweet and Kathrina have been very 
popular, as well as his novels Sevenoaks, Arthur 
Bonnicastle, and Miss Gilbert's Career. He was 
born in Massachusetts, and for some years made 
Springfield his home. 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882), wrote a 
story as “good as Robinson Crusoe and all true.” 
It is called Two Years before the Mast y and is 
an account of Dana’s own experience on a mer¬ 
chantman which rounded Cape Horn and sailed 
up the Pacific coast to California. Because of 
some trouble with his eyes while a student at Har¬ 
vard, Dana was forced to take the voyage which 
resulted in the book. 

Donald Grant Mitchell (1822-1908), whose pen 
name was “Ik Marvel,” wrote Reveries of a Bache¬ 
lor (1850) and Dream Life (1851), which were ex- 



92 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


ceedingly popular for many years. More modern 
taste, preferring deeds to dreams, lays the books 
aside as sentimental, but their charm still attracts 
some readers. For more than fifty years Mr. Mitch¬ 
ell made his home in New Haven, Connecticut, 
where his genial personality won many friends. 

Edward Everett Hale (1822— ), a Unitarian 

clergyman of Boston, has done literary work in 
great variety. Histories, poems, stories, and edi¬ 
torial writings have come from his pen. Some of 
his stories have long been classics, as The Man 
without a Country and My Dojible and How He 
Undid Me. The moral influence of his writings 
has been very great; for instance, his Ten Times 
One is Ten led to the formation of thousands of 
charitable clubs. 

READING FOR CHAPTER V 

Emerson. — Essays: Self-Reliance, Compensation, Man * 
ners. Poems : The Titmouse, May-Day. 

Thoreau.— Walden , Chapter VI, Visitors. 

Whittier. — Snow-Bound, The Barefoot Boy, Cassandra 
Southwick, In School Days. 

Hawthorne. — The House of the Seven Gables , or in 
Twice-Told Tales, Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, The Gray 
Champion, Old Esther Dudley. 

Lowell. — The Vision of Sir Launfal, To the Dandelion , 
and My Garden Acquaintance , found in My Study Windows. 

Longfellow.— Evangeline , Building of the Ship, Psalm 
of Life, The Wreck of the Hesperus. 

Holmes. — Poems: Old Ironsides, The Chambered Nau¬ 
tilus, The Boys, Contentment, The One-Hoss Shay. Prose: 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table , Chapters II and III. 


CHAPTER VI 


POETS OUTSIDE OF NEW ENGLAND 

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) is variously ranked 
among the writers of America, sometimes with 
the leaders, but usually his position is lower. 
He was born on a farm at Kennett Square, Penn¬ 
sylvania, of English-Quaker and German ancestry. 
As a boy he showed a fondness for reading, wrote 
poetry at the age of seven, and had such a passion 
for travel that he envied the birds' upon the tree- 
tops because they had a broader sweep of vision 
than he could get. His education did not go be¬ 
yond that furnished by an academy, but he learned 
the rudiments of German from his relatives, and 
continued the study at West Chester, where he 
was apprenticed to a printer. 

At the age of nineteen he published a small 
volume of poems which gave him considerable 
reputation. Soon afterward, with two friends, he 
set out for a tour of Europe, with very little money 
but with great enthusiasm for foreign lands. He 
was gone two years, tramping from place to place, 
and supporting himself partly by writing articles 
for American journals. These articles, under the 
title Views Afoot , he published in book form on 
his return. 


93 


94 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


In 1848 we find Taylor settled in New York, 
working successfully as a reporter and journalist. 
In 1849 he was sent to California in order that he 
might write of the mining life there. In 1851 he 
again sailed for the Old World; he visited many 
lands, including Egypt, Turkey, India, China, and 
Japan. He wrote delightful accounts of these 
travels, and on his return to America became very 
popular as a lecturer. In a few years he arranged 
to go abroad again. In fact, his boyhood wish to 
travel was abundantly fulfilled, and the record of 
his manhood is a succession of tours to various 
lands. During one of his trips to Germany he 
married his second wife, a German girl, Marie 
Hansen, who proved a most intelligent helpmate, 
especially in his study of German literature. 

In 1878 Taylor was appointed minister to Ger¬ 
many, and he died there before the year was over. 

Taylor’s Works. — Taylor’s reverence for poetry 
was boundless. He held that no other achieve¬ 
ment of man is equal to the creation of a true 
poem. He believed himself to be a poet, and 
wrote seriously and conscientiously. In 1866 he 
published a long poem entitled The Picture of St. 
John , which gave him an assured place among the 
poets of America. Longfellow called it great, but 
modern critics show little enthusiasm for it. The 
Masque of the Gods Taylor thought his greatest 
poem; but Lars , a story of Norway with some 
scenes laid in Pennsylvania, appeals more to the 
popular fancy and is favorably compared with 


BAYARD TAYLOR 


95 


Longfellow’s Evangeline. But none of Taylor’s 
verse became popular as did Longfellow’s. He 
failed to touch the heart like the New Englander. 
His poems of the Orient are perhaps his best. 
One of them, the Bedouin Song , is justly fa¬ 
mous. Hylas, which tells the story of the old 
Greek myth, is most beautiful in conception, ex¬ 
pression, and rhythm ; and another lyric, The Song 
of the Camp , is well known. Although Taylor’s 
poetry is at present generally neglected, much of 
it is well worth reading. 

Translation of Faust. — The critics unite in com¬ 
mending Taylor’s translation of Goethe’s Faust. 
He uses the same meter as Goethe, is faithful to 
the German text, and shows sympathy with the 
spirit of the poem. The translation is considered 
a standard work, and gives Taylor a higher place 
in literature than his other works justify. 

Taylor’s Prose consists of many volumes descrip¬ 
tive of his travels; of the novels Hannah Thurs¬ 
ton, John Godfrey's Fortunes , and The Story of 
Kennett; a history of Germany; some tales; and 
critical essays. His novels sold well at the time 
they were issued; his stories were all good; his 
literary criticisms were learned and to the point; 
and always his style was clear and simple. 

Wait Whitman (1819-1892), the most eccentric 
of American writers, was born on Long Island, 
near Brooklyn. He was the son of a carpenter 
and builder, and after being for a time printer, 
schoolmaster, and editor, followed his father’s trade 


96 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


until the breaking out of the Civil War, when he 
served humanity by becoming an army nurse. 
After the war he held several government clerk¬ 
ships in Washington, and for the last twenty years 
of his life lived at Camden, New Jersey, an in¬ 
valid as the result of a paralytic stroke. 

Whitman’s Writings.— In 1855 Whitman pub¬ 
lished some poems under the title Leaves of Grass, 
and from time to time these poems were expanded 
and other poems added to the collection. He 
called himself the prophet of democracy, but un¬ 
fortunately he expressed himself in such a way 
that the masses for whom he wrote were not at¬ 
tracted. Instead of using rime and meter, Whitman 
expressed his thoughts in a rude, disjointed style 
which he called chants. That logical and har¬ 
monious grouping of ideas which we call form and 
art, he disregarded entirely. Therefore many, read¬ 
ing his lines and expecting to find ideas expressed 
after the time-honored method, saw no poetry at 
all in what he wrote; while others, approaching 
him with more sympathy, considered him original 
and great. This latter view is held in England, 
where Whitman is regarded as typical of Ameri¬ 
can ideals, or, at least, of what they ought to be. 
John Addington Symonds, the English critic, 
writes reverently and enthusiastically of Whitman, 
saying: “ He taught me to comprehend the har¬ 
mony between the democratic spirit, science, and 
that larger religion to which the modern world is 
being led by the conception of human brotherhood. 





I 








































































































































































- 








































































WALT WHITMAN 


97 


♦ . . He inspired me with faith, and made me feel 
that optimism was not unreasonable.” He calls 
Whitman “ the teacher of a new way of regarding 
life, the prophet of a democratic religion, and the 
poet of a revolutionary school.” 

Whitman’s democracy includes more than the 
political rights of a people. It embraces education, 
literature, character, and all things which are im¬ 
portant to the development and destiny of man. 
When he looks at his fellow-countrymen, they are 
more to him than creatures “ born free and equal ” 
under the law. They possess beauty, goodness, 
and greatness, the low as well as the high, provided 
each is living a worthy life. 

The subjects of Whitman’s poetry cover all 
phases of nature and all sorts and conditions of 
men. 

“Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images 
ripening. 

Give, me, O God, to sing that thought,” 


he cries in his Song of the Universal; 

“Health, peace, salvation universal. 

Is it a dream ? 

Nay, but the lack of it the dream, =*> 

And failing it life’s lore and wealth a dream, 

And all the world a dream.” 

Of all Whitman’s verse, that written in memory 
of Abraham Lincoln is probably best known. One 
chant beginning, “ When lilacs last in the dooryard 


98 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


bloom’d,” and a shorter tribute called 0 Captain I 
My Captain ! must ever be held as true poetry: — 

“O Captain ! My Captain ! rise up and hear the bells; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung-—for you the bugle trills, 
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths — for you the shores 
a-crowding, 

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 
Here, Captain ! dear father ! 

This arm beneath your head ! 

It is some dream that on the deck, 

You’ve fallen cold and dead.” 

In description Whitman is graphic and strong. 
Patrolling Barnegat illustrates this characteristic, 
and also his love of the sea; — 

“Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running, 

Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone 
muttering, 

Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, 
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, 

Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering, 

On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting, 
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting, 

Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting, 
Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs 
careering, 

A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night con¬ 
fronting, 

That savage trinity warily watching.” 


In Proud M?isic of the Storm we have clearly 
brought out, as in most of his other poems, how 




WALT WHITMAN 


99 


dearly he loved nature, and how suggestive was 
her voice. He- says: — 

u Ah from a little child, 

Thou knowest, soul, how to me all sounds became music, 

My mother’s voice in lullaby or hymn, 

******* 

The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long' 
leav’d corn, 

The measur’d sea-surf beating on the sand, 

The twittering bird, the hawk’s sharp scream, 

The wild-fowl’s notes at night as flying low migrating 
north or south. 

******* 

Poems bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted 
in night air, uncaught, unwritten, 

Which let us go forth in the bold day and write.” 

Whitman certainly is a genuine poet, and no half¬ 
hearted one. To quote from Symonds : “ Whit¬ 
man, working under the conditions of his chosen 
style, has produced long series of rhythmic utter¬ 
ances, strung together and governed by an inner 
law of melody. ... In his happiest moments 
these periods are perfect poems, to alter which 
would be to ruin them.” The most beautiful of his 
longer poems is called Out of the Cradle endlessly 
Rocking . 

Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) is often regarded as 
the greatest poet that the South has produced, 
and certainly in several of his poems he is the peer 
of any poet in the country. He was born in 
Macon, Georgia, the son of a lawyer of French 


100 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


descent, whose ancestors, noted for their musical 
abilities, had settled in England in the days of 
Queen Elizabeth. His mother’s ancestors were 
Scotch, and as a gift for music ran in her family 
also, it is small wonder that Lanier’s earliest pas¬ 
sion was for music. As a child he learned, almost 
instinctively, to play on every kind of musical 
instrument he could find. He devoted himself 
especially to the flute, but was also entranced by 
the violin. 

He was graduated at Oglethorpe College in 
Georgia, and became a tutor there. When the Civil 
War broke out, he enlisted in the Confederate 
army, took part in many battles, and was finally 
captured and held a prisoner for many months. 
After the war he married and taught school for a 
time, but he began to show signs of consumption, 
and his remaining life was a heroic struggle with 
the dread disease. 

In spite of all depressing circumstances, however, 
music and poetry were the two objects which Lanier 
kept steadily before him. He played the flute in 
an orchestra in Baltimore — played it so well that 
his director said: “ In his hands the flute no longer 
remained a mere material instrument, but was 
transformed into a voice that set heavenly har¬ 
monies into vibration.” He wrote poems and 
magazine articles, and traveled to different local 
climates in search of healing for his lungs. 

All these years he diligently studied English 
literature, and in 1879 was appointed lecturer on 


SIDNEY LANIER 


IOI 


the subject at Johns Hopkins University. Some 
of these lectures are collected in a volume called 
The Science of English Verse, in which he gives 
his theories in regard to poetry. His physical 
condition at this time was so pathetic that it seems 
almost incredible that he could compose at all; yet 
besides a well-filled volume of poems, he wrote a 
number of books for boys — stories from Froissart, 
King Arthur, the Mabinogion, and Bishop Percy’s 
Reliques. 

Lanier’s Poetry. — As Lanier was a musical genius, 
music is the striking characteristic of his verse. It 
is both a virtue and a fault, for often he is so carried 
away by the sound of his words and lines that the 
sense becomes confused. His rich, exuberant fancy, 
too, sometimes leads him into mazes where it is 
hard to follow; but he is thoroughly poetic, and 
always lofty in thought, kindling one’s enthusiasm 
for beauty, purity, and nobility of life. Through¬ 
out his poems runs a solemn, reverential thought 
of God. One sees it in nearly all his descriptions 
of nature, and especially in his greatest poems, 
The Marshes of Glynn and The Sunrise. 

Lanier has never been a popular poet, possibly 
because it is a little difficult to enter into his moods; 
but one of his poems, the Song of the Chattahoochee , 
has always been a favorite. It gives a good picture 
of the country through which the stream runs, is 
musical in tone, and high in sentiment. Here 
are three stanzas of the five that compose the 
poem: — 


102 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


“ Out of the hills of Habersham, 

Down the valleys of Hall, 

The hurrying rain, to reach the plain, 

Has run the rapid and leapt the fall, 

Split at the rock and together again, 

Accepted his bed, or narrow or wide, 

And fled from folly on every side, 

With a lover’s pain to attain the plain, 

Far from the hills of Habersham, 

Far from the valleys of Hall. 

“ All down the hills of Habersham, 

All through the valleys of Hall, 

The rushes cried, Abide , abide; 

The willful water weeds held me thrall, 

The laurel, slow-laving, turned my tide, 

The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay , 

- The dewberry dipped for to win delay, 

And the little reeds sighed, Abide , abide , 

Here in the hills of Habersham , 

Here i?i the valleys of Hall. 

****** 

“ But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 

And oh, not the valleys of Hall, 

Shall hinder the rain from attaining the plain, 

For downward the voices of duty call —■ 
Downward to toil and be mixed with the main- 
The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn, 

And a thousand meadows mortally yearn, 

And the final main from beyond the plain, 

Calls o’er the hills of Habersham, 

And calls through the valleys of HaU.” 

Owl against Robin , The Crystal , The Revenge of 
Hamish , and Corn are further examples of Lanier’s 
moods and methods. Corn shows the irregular 


LESSER POETS 


103 


meter which he commonly used, and his richness 
of thought. 

The world is looking for poets in our land who 
are truly American. If by that is meant poets 
who do not copy the singers of the Old World, 
then Lanier has given us poetry which, with the 
poems of Poe and Whitman, may form the nucleus 
of an American School. 

LESSER POETS 

The Cary Sisters, Alice (1820-1871) and Phoebe 
(1824-1871), wrote graceful, melodious poems 
which attracted many readers. They were born 
in Ohio, but after 1850 lived in New York City, 
where the charm of their personality attracted 
many people to their weekly receptions. Alice 
Cary excels particularly in descriptive poetry. Her 
best pieces are those which sketch the life and 
scenery which she knew in childhood. 

Thomas Buchanan Read (1822— 1 872), of Penn¬ 
sylvania, would perhaps have been a greater poet 
had he given his time entirely to literature, but he 
was painter as well as poet, and devoted much 
time to his brush. He lived often in Italy, and 
that country inspired his best work, including 
Brushwood and The Appian Way. Drifting and 
Sheridan's Ride are his most popular poems. 

Henry Timrod (1829-1867) and Paul Hamilton 
Hayne (1830-1886), both natives of Charleston, 
South Carolina, wrote verse showing many excel¬ 
lent characteristics. Timrod’s subjects, though 


104 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


generally trifling, are handled with true and lofty 
poetic feeling. His best-known poem is The Cot¬ 
ton Boll , in which he sings the praises of the 
Southland and the value of the cotton which makes 
the Southland great — 

“ In white and bloodless state.” 

Hayne specially loved nature and pictured her 
moods with admiring faithfulness and reverence, 
singing in beautiful lines of mocking birds and 
magnolia gardens, of woodland ways and tossing 
sea. He has written as fine bits as any American 
poet. The sonnet was his favorite verse form. 

Richard Henry Stoddard (1825—1903), though a 
native of Massachusetts, spent most of his life in 
New York City. His father was a sea captain, and 
love for the sea is shown in many of his poems. 

“ I love thee, Ocean, and delight in thee, 

Thy color, motion, vastness, — all the eye 
Takes in from shore, and on the tossing waves,” 

he tells us in his Hymn to the Sea. The Fisher 
arid Charon is one of his best long poems, beauti¬ 
ful in its ideal of deathless love and love that 
braves death. 


READING FOR CHAPTER VI 

Taylor .—The Song of the Camp, Bedouin Song, The Gar - 
den of Irem, The Old Pennsylvania Farmer . 

Whitman. — O Captain! My Captain ! Proud Music of 
the Storm. 

Lanier. — Owl against Robin, Song of the Chattahoochee, 
The Marshes of Glynn. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE ORATORS 

In a country like ours the conditions are natu¬ 
rally favorable for the development of oratory. 
Government by the people, freedom in religion, 
and the right to assemble peaceably and give one’s 
views on various matters, naturally lead to the dis¬ 
cussion of many questions, both in the halls of 
legislature and on the lecture platform. America 
has therefore been particularly rich in orators. 
The subjects of slaver]', temperance, and religion 
have each called forth earnest, eloquent appeals 
from men and women. 

In the field of political oratory the names of 
Clay, Calhoun, and Webster usually come first to 
mind, for these three men fought in the United 
States Senate the battles of slavery and freedom, 
states-rights and union, in a conflict familiar to all 
Americans. 

But oratory is not always literature. Its effect 
to so large an extent depends on the personality, 
voice, and manner of the speaker, as well as on 
the occasion which gives rise to it, that many ora¬ 
tions which filled the hearers with enthusiasm seem 
dull and lifeless when read in print. Henry Clay’s 
charm, unfortunately for us of this later generation, 
came more from his personal magnetism than the 
io 5 


io6 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


literary worth of his sentences; and John C. Cal¬ 
houn’s power lay in the force of his logic and his 
keen and merciless debate. Webster’s fame, how¬ 
ever, rests not only on personality and logic, but 
on an enduring literary style. With him as great 
orators must be mentioned Everett and Choate. 

Daniel Webster (1782-18 52) was the greatest of 
the three, and the greatest orator that America 
has yet produced. Indeed, his fame is not only 
national, but world-wide. 

He was born on a farm in New Hampshire, was 
graduated at Dartmouth College, studied law, and 
in 1816 went to Boston to live. From 1827 until 
1852, with the exception of four years, two of 
which he was Secretary of State, he represented 
Massachusetts in the United States Senate. His 
speeches, whether in the courtroom, in the Senate, 
or before a general audience, are uniformly great, 
classical in form, and alive with the eloquence 
which comes from the subject, the occasion, and 
the hour. His Plymouth oration in 1820, his ad¬ 
dress at the laying of the cornerstone of Bunker 
Hill Monument in 1825, and his reply to Hayne 
in the Senate in 1830 are among his famous utter¬ 
ances. 

The literary value of his addresses comes from 
largeness of intellect, greatness of soul, depth of 
feeling, and breadth of imagination, expressed in 
a forceful and finished style. His words are choice 
and picturesque; and harmonious, well-composed 
sentences roll on with the majesty of the sea. 

























WEBSTER AND EVERETT 


107 


“Who does not rank him as a great American 
author ? ” asks Choate, in his eulogy ; “ an author 
as truly expounding, and as characteristically ex¬ 
emplifying, in a pure, genuine, and harmonious 
English style, the mind, thought, point of view of 
objects, and essential nationality of his country as 
any of our authors professedly so denominated ? ” 

Edward Everett (1794-1865) was the most pol¬ 
ished, most scholarly of our orators, and an all- 
around man of affairs as well as a student, as a 
brief chronological survey of his life will show. 

He was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts; 
was graduated at Harvard; ordained a Unitarian 
clergyman ; became professor of Greek at Harvard ; 
edited the North American Review; was for ten 
years member of Congress ; for four years governor 
of Massachusetts; for four years minister to Eng¬ 
land; was Secretary of State; president of Har¬ 
vard College; senator from Massachusetts; and in 
i860 was nominated for the vice presidency of the 
United States. 

His beauty and dignity of person, his rich voice, 
and perfect utterance of words were part of his 
attraction as an orator; but, to quote from Emer¬ 
son, it was “the richness of a rhetoric which we 
have never seen rivaled in this country ” which 
held his hearers spellbound. He had the depth 
and breadth of thinking which his ripe scholarship 
would lead one to expect, a keen sense of beauty, 
and the ability to present his ideas in finished 
literary form. His addresses were perfect. Those 


io8 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


published comprise four volumes; among them 
may be mentioned The Circumstances Favorable to 
the Progress of Literature in America , and the ora¬ 
tion on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration 
of Independence of the United States of America. 

Rufus Choate (1799-1859), a Massachusetts man, 
a lawyer of wonderful gifts, and United States 
senator, was such a wizard in oratory that those 
who heard him speak say no adequate idea of his 
brilliancy can be obtained from reading his ad¬ 
dresses. In them, however, we note a. beauty and 
power of expression which is given to few men. 
One of his peculiarities is the use of the long, com¬ 
plex sentence in which by picture after picture, and 
idea after idea, he tries to make one feel and see 
as he does. Although his life was very busy, he 
devoted a portion of each day to the study of 
literature, history, and philosophy, and thus trained 
himself for the brilliant effects which he produced. 
He was a great admirer of Webster, and several 
speeches on that statesman’s life and fame are 
among his collected orations. 

Among the clergymen, William Ellery Charming 
(1780-1842), the leader of the early Unitarians, 
ranks with the best pulpit orators of his time; 
and Theodore Parker (181o-1860), also a Unitarian, 
became prominent for his bold, forceful attacks 
on superstition and slavery. Henry Ward Beecher 
(1813-1887), for many years pastor o'f Plymouth 
Church, Brooklyn, held great audiences spell- 


THE ORATORS 


109 


bound by the magnetism of his personality and 
his sympathetic, eloquent appeals for the uplift¬ 
ing of humanity. Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), 
Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts, 
beloved for his personality as well as his oratory, 
possessed in an unusual degree the power of pene¬ 
trating the feelings of his audiences. He produced 
his electrical effects by a combination of depth of 
thought, insight of soul, and sympathetic expres¬ 
sion. 

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), though the maker 
of many speeches, is remembered in literature for 
his Gettysburg Address , which for its simple style, 
genuine feeling, and sublime thought is counted 
among the classics of the English language. 

Wendell Phillips (1811 — 1884) and Charles Sumner 
(1811-1874) were both antislavery orators and 
Boston men who sacrificed a great deal of social 
prestige by their public utterances. Phillips was 
noted for brilliancy and polish of style, and for a 
fiery eloquence which, in spite of exaggeration of 
facts and sometimes reckless judgments, carried 
all before it. After the Civil War he lectured on 
various subjects. His greatest lecture was The 
Lost Arts . After 1850 most of Sumner’s addresses 
were political; before that they were miscellaneous. 
His thoughts were lofty; and his style, though 
rather heavy, was beautiful, with stately allusions 
to history and the classics. Fame and Glory and 
True Grandeur of Nations are among his best 
addresses. 


no 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


George William Curtis (1824-1892) was a most 
delightful speaker on many topics. His Duty of 
the American Scholar to Politics and the Times is 
a good example of the literary quality of his ad¬ 
dresses, while his eulogies on Sumner, Wendell 
Phillips, Bryant, and Lowell mark his highest 
skill. Curtis’s whole life was devoted to literature 
in one form or another. Outside of his addresses, 
the story called Prue and I is considered his mas¬ 
terpiece. 


READING FOR CHAPTER VII 

In the small volumes called American Orations , edited by 
Johnston and Woodburn, and published by G. P. Putnam’s 
Sons, will be found a collection of the choicest American 
orations. 

Webster. — First Bunker Hill Oration. 

Everett.— The Circumstances Favorable to the Progress 
of Literature in America. 

Choate. — Eulogy on Webster . 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE HISTORIANS 

The manner of writing history differs in differ¬ 
ent periods. In the earliest ages in England, his¬ 
torical writing was nothing more than the dry 
chronicle of public events; then it became more 
elaborate in description, though still rather unin¬ 
teresting reading. In modern times, in both 
England and America, we find certain histories of 
such literary merit that they cannot be overlooked 
even in the most general survey of literature. Our 
great American historians are Prescott, Motley, 
Bancroft, and Parkman, all Massachusetts men, 
and all graduates of Harvard. 

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) worked 
under very discouraging circumstances. While he 
was at college, a crust of bread thrown across the 
table injured one eye, and the other was affected 
to such an extent that he became almost totally 
blind. He acquired information, therefore, almost 
wholly from hearing people read, and whatever he 
composed himself was dictated to an amanuensis. 

Prescott became interested in Spanish history 
from hearing Professor Ticknor of Harvard read 
the lectures on Spanish literature which he was 
then giving to some of his advanced classes, and 
hi 


112 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


forthwith resolved to write^Thistory of Ferdinand 
and Isabella of Spain. After more than ten years 
of patient effort, the work was at last ready. It 
appeared in 1837, and was followed by The Con¬ 
quest of Mexico (1843), The Conquest of Peru 
(1847), and The History of Philip the Second 
( 1855 ). 

Prescott is a master of the art of narrative. Few 
novels surpass some chapters of his histories in 
intensity of interest. His style is brilliant, pictur¬ 
esque, stimulating to the imagination. The ac¬ 
curacy of his facts may sometimes be questioned, 
for modern research has brought to light docu¬ 
ments of which he had no knowledge, but he 
makes us so interested in history that we thirst 
for more. 

The following quotation is from that part of the 
history of Ferdinand and Isabella which describes 
the surrender of Granada : — 

u Every preparation was made by the Spaniards for per¬ 
forming this last act of the drama with suitable pomp and 
effect. . . . On the morning of the 2d, the whole Christian 
camp exhibited a scene of the most animating bustle. The 
grand cardinal Mendoza was sent forward at the head of a 
large detachment, comprehending his household troops, and 
the veteran infantry grown gray in the Moorish wars, to 
occupy the Alhambra preparatory to the entrance of the 
sovereigns. . . . 

“ As the column under the grand cardinal advanced up the 
Hill of Martyrs, over which a road had been constructed for 
the passage of the artillery, he was met by the Moorish prince 
Abdallah, attended by fifty cavaliers, who, descending the hill, 


PRESCOTT AND MOTLEY 


113 

rode up to the position occupied by Ferdinand on the banks 
of the Xenil. As the Moor approached the Spanish king, he 
would have thrown himself from his horse and saluted his 
hand in token of homage; but Ferdinand hastily prevented 
him, embracing him with every mark of sympathy and regard. 
Abdallah then delivered up the keys of the Alhambra to his 
conqueror, saying, ‘ They are thine, O king, since Allah so 
decrees it: use thy success with clemency and moderation.’ 
Ferdinand would have uttered some words of consolation to 
the unfortunate prince, but he moved forward with a dejected 
air to the spot occupied by Isabella, and, after similar acts of 
obeisance, passed on to join his family, who had preceded him 
with his most valuable effects on the route to the Alpujarras.” 

Then follows the account of the entrance of 
Ferdinand and Isabella into Granada. 

“ In the meanwhile the Moorish king, traversing the route 
of the Alpujarras, reached a rocky eminence which commanded 
a last view of Granada. He checked his horse, and, as his 
eye for the last time wandered over the scenes of his de¬ 
parted greatness, his heart swelled, and he burst into tears. 
‘ You do well, 1 said his more masculine mother, ‘ to weep like a 
woman for what you could not defend like a man! 1 ‘Alas!’ 
exclaimed the unhappy exile, ‘ when were woes ever equal to 
mine! ’ The scene of this event is still pointed out to the 
traveller by the people of the district; and the rocky height 
from which the Moorish chief took his sad farewell of the 
princely abodes of his youth is commemorated by the poetical 
title of El ultimo Sospiro del Moro , ‘The Last Sigh of the 
Moor. 1 ” 

John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877), after being 
graduated at Harvard, went to Germany for two 
years, then became a lawyer, wrote two unsuccess¬ 
ful novels, went to St. Petersburg as secretary of 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


114 

the American legation, and finally became so ab¬ 
sorbed in the history of Holland that he felt it 
“necessary to write a book on the subject, even 
if it were destined to fall dead from the press.” 
Accordingly he went to Europe and for five years 
searched in several cities for the records of Hol¬ 
land’s history. The result was The Rise of the 
Dutch Republic (1856). Then came the History 
of the United Netherlands (1860-1868), and The 
Life and Death of John of Barneveld (1874). 

This series shows Motley’s enthusiasm for Amer¬ 
ican ideals — freedom of thought, of speech, and 
of life. He is brilliant and vivid in description, 
and strongly partisan in his praise or blame of the 
picturesque figures that crowd his pages. The fol¬ 
lowing short quotation from his dramatic account 
of the fall of Antwerp will suggest his style: — 

“ Never was there a more monstrous massacre, even in the 
bloodstained history of the Netherlands. It was estimated 
that in the course of this and the two following days, not less 
than eight thousand human beings were murdered. The 
Spaniards seemed to cast off even the vizard of humanity. 
Hell seemed emptied of its fiends. Night fell upon the scene 
before the soldiers were masters of the city, but worse horrors 
began after the contest was ended. This army of brigands 
had come thither with a definite, practical purpose, for it was 
not blood-thirst, nor lust, nor revenge, which had impelled 
them, but it was avarice, greediness for gold. For gold they 
had waded through all this blood and fire. Never had men 
more simplicity of purpose, more directness in its execution. 
They had conquered their India at last; its golden mines lay 
all before them, and every sword should open a shaft. . . . 
They had come to take possession of the city’s wealth, and 


GEORGE BANCROFT 


115 

they set themselves faithfully to accomplish their task. For 
gold, infants were dashed out of existence in their mothers 1 
arms; for gold, parents were tortured in their children’s 
presence ; for gold, brides were scourged to death before their 
husbands 1 eyes . 11 

George Bancroft (1800-1891) became, in 1822, a 
tutor of Greek at Harvard after several years of 
study in Germany, and the next year opened a 
school for boys at Northampton, Massachusetts. 
Seven years of school-mastering proved sufficient, 
however, and he gave up teaching and began writ¬ 
ing a history of the United States. The first vol¬ 
ume appeared in 1834, the tenth and last in 1874. 

Bancroft’s knowledge of political affairs and 
his great executive ability made him eminently 
fitted for political positions. From 1838 to 1841 
he was collector for the port of Boston, and did his 
work with a thoroughness never before equaled. 
In 1845 he became Secretary of the Navy and 
founded the United States Naval Academy at 
Annapolis. From 1846 to 1849 he was minister 
to England, and took this opportunity to secure 
much material for his history. He pronounced 
the eulogy on Lincoln before Congress in 1866, 
and in 1867 went to Prussia as minister. 

Bancroft’s History of the United States is not 
entertaining like Prescott’s histories. It is more 
formal and exact, and goes into minute details in 
regard to many matters. Though there are ten 
volumes, Bancroft tells the history of our country 
only to the beginning of Washington’s administra- 


116 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


tion. After describing Washington’s trip from 
Mount Vernon to New York, and giving some 
account of his inauguration as President, the last 
volume closes with these words : — 

“ In America a new people had risen up without king, or 
prince, or nobles, knowing nothing of tithes and little of land¬ 
lords, the plough being for the most part in the hands of free 
holders of the soil. They were more sincerely religious, better 
educated, of serener minds, and of purer morals than the men 
of any former republic. By calm meditation and friendly 
councils they had prepared a constitution which, in the union 
of freedom with strength and order, excelled every one known 
before; and which secured itself against violence and revolu¬ 
tion by providing a peaceful method for every needed reform. 
In the happy morning of their existence as one of the powers 
of the world, they had chosen justice for their guide; and 
while they proceeded on their way with well-founded confi¬ 
dence and joy, all the friends of mankind invoked success on 
the unexampled endeavor to govern states and territories of 
imperial extent as one federal republic.” 


Francis Parkman’s life (1823-1893) is a Striking 
example of perseverance in the face of difficulties. 
In early life he became very much interested in 
the history of the Indians and of the French in 
North America. He impaired his eyesight by too 
much reading, and then by living with the Indians 
of the Northwest and enduring their hardships 
he ruined his health. In The Oregon Trail (1849) 
he tells of his Western experiences. The one 
object of his life—to write on the subjects in 
which he had shown a boyhood interest — never 
left him, and in the intervals between his various 
















































r» 





















t 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 


7 


illnesses he renewed his acquaintance with the 
Indians, visited the region between Quebec and 
Lake George, and made trips to Paris to collect 
material for his books. The Conspiracy of Pontiac 
appeared first (1851); then long years of ill health 
prevented further publication until 1865, when 
The Pioneers of France in the New World was 
printed. Fallowing in succession came The Jesuits 
in North America, The Discovery of the Great 
West, The Old Regime, Count Frontenac and New 
France under Louis XIV, Montcalm and Wolfe, 
and A Half-Century of Conflict. 

Parkman’s histories are both accurate in fact and 
attractive in style. He is clear, straightforward, 
easy to comprehend, and tells a story in the eager, 
interested manner of a personal witness. 

In his account of the attack by the French on 
Fort William Henry, which guarded the head¬ 
waters of Lake George, he narrates the following 
incident: — 

“ About ten o’clock at night two boats set out from the 
fort to reconnoitre. They were passing a point of land on 
their left, two miles or more down the lake, when the men on 
board descried through the gloom a strange object against 
the bank; and they rowed towards it to learn what it might 
be. It was an awning over the bateaux that carried Roubaud 
and his brother missionaries. As the rash oarsmen drew 
near, the bleating of a sheep in one of the French provision- 
boats warned them of danger; and turning, they pulled for 
their lives towards the eastern shore. Instantly more than a 
thousand Indians threw themselves into their canoes and 
dashed in hot pursuit, making the lake and the mountains ring 
with the din of their war-whoops. The fugitives had nearly 


120 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


29. Sidney Lanier, 1842-1881: 

The Marshes of Glynn; 
The Sunrise. 

30. Authors remembered for 

single poems: 

a. Samuel Woodworth, 1785- 

1842: The Old Oaken 

Bucket. 

b. George P. Morris, 1802- 

1864: Woodman, Spare 

That Tree. 

c. John Howard Payne, 1791- 
1852: Hofne, Sweet Home. 

d. Francis Scott Key, 1779- 
1843: The Star-Spangled 
Banner. 

e. Richard Henry Wilde, 
1789-1847 : My Life is like 
the Summer Rose. 

Prose 

I. The Novel and Story 

1. Washington Irving, 1783- 

1859: The Sketch-Book; 

Knickerbocker's History of 
New York. 

2. James Kirke Paulding, 1779- 

1860: The Dutchman s Fire¬ 
side. 

3. James Fenimore Cooper, 

1789-1851: The Spy; The 
Pilot; The Leather-Stocking 
Tales. 

4. Catherine Maria Sedgwick, 

1780-1867: Hope Leslie; 
Redwood. 

5. Richard Henry Dana, 1787- 

1879 : Tom Thornton ; Paul 
Fenton. 

6 . William Gilmore Simms, 

1806-1870: The Partisan; 
Beauchampe; The Yemas- 

see. 


7. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804 

1864: The Scarlet Letter; 
The Marble Faun. 

8. Lydia Maria Child, 1802-1880: 

The Rebels. 

9. John Pendleton Kennedy, 

1795-1870 : Swallow Barn ; 
Horse-Shoe Robinson. 

10. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809- 

1894: Elsie Venner; The 
Guardian Angel. 

11. Harriet Beecher Stowe, 

1812-1896: Uncle Tom's 
Cabin ; The Minister's Woo¬ 
ing. 

12. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., 

1815-18S2: Two Years be¬ 
fore the Mast. 

13. Josiah Gilbert Holland, 1819- 

1881: Arthur Bonnicastle; 
The Story of Seven oaks. 

14. Donald Grant Mitchell, 1892- 

1908: Reveries of a Bach¬ 
elor ; Dream Life. 

15. Edward Everett Hale, 1822- 

: The Man without a 
Country; Philip Nolan's 
Friends. 

16. George William Curtis, 1824- 

1892: Prue and I. 

17. Bayard Taylor, 1825-1878: 

Hannah Thurston; Story 
of Kennett. 

18. John T. Trowbridge, 1827- 

: Neighbor Jackwood. 

19. John Esten Cooke, 1830-1886: 

Henry St. John; The Vir¬ 
ginia Comedians. 

20. Augusta Evans Wilson, 1835- 

: Beulah; St. Elmo. 

21. Theodore Winthrop, 1828- 

1861: John Brent; Cecil 
Dreeme. 


SUMMARY 


121 


II. Description of Nature 

i. Henry David Thoreau, 1817- 
1862 : Walden ; A Week on 
the Concord and Merrimack 
Rivers; Cape Cod. 

III. Orations 

1. William Ellery Channing, 

1780-1842: Sermons. 

2. Henry, Clay, 1777-1852: 

Speeches. 

3. John C. Calhoun, 1782-1850: 

Speeches. 

4. Rufus Choate, 1799-1859: 

Eulogy on Webster. 

5. Robert Young Hayne, 1791- 

1839: Speeches. 

6. Daniel Webster, 1782-1852: 

Reply to Hayne; Bunker 

Hill. 

7. Edward Everett, 1794-1865: 

Orations and Speeches. 

8. Theodore Parker, 1810-1860: 

Speeches, Addresses , and 
Occasional Sermons. 

9. Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865: 

Gettysburg Address. 

10. Wendell Phillips, 1811-1884: 

Lost Arts ; Toussaint L'Ou- 
verture. 

11. Charles Sumner, 1811-1874: 

Fame and Glory; True 
Grandeur of Nations; Po¬ 
litical Speeches. 

12. Henry Ward Beecher, 1813- 

1887: Sermons; Army of 
the Republic; Wendell 
Phillips. 

13. Robert Charles Winthrop, 

1809-1894: 250th Anniver¬ 
sary of the Landing of the 
Pilgrims; Addresses and 
Speeches. 


14. Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893: 
Essays and Addresses, Reli¬ 
gious, Literary, and Social. 

IV. History and Biography 

1. William Wirt, 1772-1834 : Life 

of Patrick Henry, 1817. 

2. William Ellery Channing, 

1780-1842: Life and Charac¬ 
ter of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

3. Washington Irving, 1783-1859: 

The Life and Voyages of 
Christopher Columbus ; Life 
of Washington. 

4. William Hickling Prescott, 

1796-1859 : History of Fer¬ 
dinand and Isabella; Con¬ 
quest of Mexico. 

5. James Gorham Palfrey, 1796- 

1881: History of New Eng¬ 
land. 

6. George Bancroft, 1800-1891: 

History of the United States. 

7. Lydia Maria Child, 1802-1880: 

History of the Condition of 
Women in All Ages and 
Nations. 

8. John S. C. Abbott, 1805-1877 : 

History of Napoleon Bona¬ 
parte; The French Revolu¬ 
tion of tySg. 

9. Richard Hildreth, 1807-1865: 

History of the United States. 

10. Benson J. Lossing, 1813-1891: 

Life of Washington ; Field 
Book of the Revolution. 

11. John Lothrop Motley, 1814- 

1877: The Rise of the 
Dutch Republic. 

12. Francis Parkman, 1823-1893: 

The Conspiracy of Pontiac ; 
Pioneers of France in the 
New World; Montcalm and 
Wolfe. 


122 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


13. John Esten Cooke, 1830-1886: 

Life of General Lee ; Vir¬ 
ginia, a History of the 
People. 

14. John Fiske, 1842-1901: The 

American Revolution. 

15. Horace E. Scudder, 1838- 

1903 : Life of Noah Webster ; 
A History of the United 
States. 

I 

V. Essays 

1. Alexander H. Everett, 1799- 

1847: Critical and Mis¬ 
cellaneous Essays. 

2. Amos Bronson Alcott, 1799- 

1888 : Essays; Table Talk. 

3. Margaret Fuller Ossoli, 1810- 

1850 : Woman in the Nine¬ 


teenth Century ; Art, Litera¬ 
ture, and the Drama. 

4. James Freeman Clarke, 1810- 

1888: Self-Culture. 

5. James T. Fields, 1817-1881: 

Yesterdays with Authors; 
Underbrush. 

6. Richard Grant White, 1822- 

1885: Words and Their 
Uses ; Every-day English. 

7. Edwin Percy Whipple, 1819- 

1886: Literature and Life. 

8. George William Curtis, 1824- 

1892: Potiphar Papers. 

9. Charles Dudley Warner, 1829- 

1900: My Summer in a 
Garden ; Backlog Studies. 

10. Richard Henry Stoddard, 
1825-1903: Under the 

Evening Lamp. 


CHAPTER IX 


LATER WRITERS 

EVENTS SINCE 1870 


Grant’s administration, 1869-77. 

The Pacific Railroad com¬ 
pleted, 1869. 

Fifteenth Amendment, 1870. 

Centennial Exhibition, 1876. 

Hayes’s administration, 18 77- 
81. 

Great railroad strikes, 1877. 

The telephone in use, 1877. 

Resumption of specie pay¬ 
ment, 1879. 

Garfield’s and Arthur’s adminis¬ 
trations, 1881-85. 

Assassination of Garfield, 
1881. 

Civil service reform, 1883. 

Cleveland’s administration, 1885- 
89. 

Anarchist riot, Chicago, 1886. 

Statue of Liberty completed 
at New York, 1886. 

Harrison’s administration, 1889- 
93- 

Wyoming admitted to the 
Union, having full woman 
suffrage, 1890. 

Mormon Church renounces 
polygamy, 1890. 

Cleveland’s second administra¬ 
tion, 1893-97. 

Opening of Columbian Ex¬ 
position, 1893. 

Financial panic, 1893. 

Settlement of our control of 
Behring Sea, 1893. 

McKinley’s and Roosevelt’s ad¬ 
ministrations, 1897-1905. 

War with Spain, 1898-99. 

123 


Assassination of President 
McKinley, 1901. 

Anthracite coal strike, 1902. 

Panama Canal Treaty, 1904. 

Roosevelt’s second administration, 
1905-09. 

Investigation of trusts. 

Atlantic Squadron sailed 
around the world. 

Pure food laws enacted. 

Taft's administration, 1909-13. 

Fishery dispute with Great 
Britain settled at The 
Hague, 1910. 

Troops sent to Mexican 
border. 

The United States mediates 
between Peru and Ecuador. 

Wilson’s administration, 1913-21. 

Increase of self-government 
given to the Philippines, 
I 9 I 3* 

The Chinese republic recog¬ 
nized. 

Threatened war with Mexico 
averted by joint action of 
Argentina, Brazil, and 
Chile, 1914. 

Congress decides United 
States’ ships using Panama 
Canal must pay toll. 

War declared against Ger¬ 
many, 1917. 

Armistice with Germany, No¬ 
vember, 1918. 

The Senate refuses to accept 
The League of Nations’ 
Treaty, 1920. 




124 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

When one attempts to enumerate the writers who 
have been prominent since the days when Long¬ 
fellow and his contemporaries were in their prime, 
one is confronted by a bewildering multiplicity of 
names. Much good writing of every modern type 
has been done, and our literature may be said to 
have become national if we consider that all sections 
of our country have been represented, especially in 
the short story and the novel. Stories of the South, 
the West, the Pacific coast, the Middle States, and 
New England have found their way into magazines 
and pretentious volumes ; the lives of high and low 
in social rank have been depicted; and hardly an 
occupation or an environment has escaped a writer. 

The Poets. — The novel and the short story with¬ 
out doubt have been, and still are, the leading 
forms of American literature. With the cutting 
down of the forests, song has grown faint and 
weak. We have become too much interested in 
science, business, and mechanical arts, perhaps, to 
encourage dreamers. Certainly we have had in 
recent years no poets who can unhesitatingly be 
called great. Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) 
wrote well many a thoughtful poem filled with good 
description and picturesque phrases; Helen Hunt 
Jackson (1831-1885) had many admirers of the 
beauty of her work; Joaquin Miller (1841- ) 

by his originality and wild beauty of imagination 
arrested attention for a time; Edmund Clarence 
Stedman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich pleased by 
their art and lyrical beauty — but none of these is 


EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 125 

truly great. The best, however, before 1900 are 
Stedman and Aldrich. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) was born 
in Hartford, Connecticut, took a course at Yale, 
and at the age of nineteen became editor of one of 
the local papers in Norwich, Connecticut. Very 
soon after this editorial venture he went to New 
York City, which became his permanent home. 
He joined the staff of the New York Tribune , and 
wrote much for the magazines. He became widely 
known by the poems The Diamond Wedding and 
How Old Brown took Harpeds Ferry . Realizing, 
however, that money is necessary if a man wishes 
to be independent in his study and writing, he be¬ 
came a banker and broker and, in 1869, a member 
of the New York Stock Exchange. 

With business giving him an assured income, he 
became noted for three lines of work — editorial, 
critical, and poetical. 

Stedman as Critic. — As a critic Stedman holds 
first rank. His Victoria71 Poets , Poets of Amer¬ 
ica , and The Nature and Elements of Poetry 
are the best work of their kind since Lowell’s 
critical essays. He writes not only with sympathy, 
appreciation, judgment, and taste, but with a phil¬ 
osophical insight into character and mood which 
gives permanent value to his words. In fact, he 
has done valuable work in leading us to realize 
what poetry is. 

Stedman as Poet. — As a poet Stedman ranks 
only a little below Longfellow, Whittier, and 


126 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Lowell. But though he writes on many subjects 
and in many forms of verse, he has never been so 
widely read as they. He is most pleasing in his 
short poems. Notice the freedom and vigor in the 
Cavalry Song in Alice of Monmouth , the sweet 
longing for the world beyond in The Undiscovered 
Country , and his many tender love poems in vari¬ 
ous moods. He makes clear pictures and has 
many beautiful fancies, but his imagination is not 
of the large, world-embracing type. His skill lies 
in making finished sketches of some bit of life. 
Pan in Wall Street , one of his best known shorter 
poems, shows his quick fancy and something of 
his skill in description. The poem was suggested 
by seeing a ragged Italian playing a flute as he 
leaned against one of the columns of a public 
building. Two of the stanzas tell us: — 

“’Twas Pan himself had wandered here 
A-strolling through this sordid city, 

And piping to the civic ear 

The prelude of some pastoral ditty ! 

The demigod had crossed the seas, — 

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, 

And Syracusan times — to these 
Far shores and twenty centuries later. 

“ A ragged cap was on his head; . 

But — hidden thus — there was no doubting 
That, all with crispy locks o’erspread, 

His gnarkd horns were somewhere sprouting; 

His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes, 

Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them, 

And trousers, patched of divers hues, 

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.” 








1 


* 
















THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 


127 


His longest poems are Alice of Monmouth (1864) 
and The Blameless Prince (1869); the former gives 
us a glimpse of the home breaking and heart 
breaking of the Civil War, and is .but one of a 
number which he wrote voicing national sentiments. 
Others are called Wanted—A Man , Abraham 
Lincoln , and Gettysburg. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) was a native 
of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the old town by 
the sea in which occurred those interesting adven¬ 
tures described in his Story of a Bad Boy. At 
the age of seventeen he became a journalist in 
New York, and before he was twenty had written 
the pathetic ballad called Babie Bell. Continuing 
literary work, in 1881 he became editor of The 
Atlantic Monthly in Boston, and held that position 
for nine years. 

Aldrich’s Poetry. — The critics tell us that 
Aldrich has produced the only uniformly artistic 
body of verse in the whole course of American 
literature. It is, perhaps, because his verse is so 
artistic, and because it does not deal with subjects 
of common interest, that his circle of readers has 
been comparatively small; for many fail to appre¬ 
ciate art who would be attracted by strong, manly 
sentiment expressed in earnest style, and Aldrich’s 
subjects lie too far away — in some scene from the 
Orient or in some pretty fancy connected with old 
castles or old legends — to affect deeply ordinary 
human life. Yet his clearness and good form, the 
delicate and subtle music of his verse, cast a witch- 


128 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


ing spell over those who read him most. His 
songs, or lyrics, are often exquisite bits of dainty 
rime, and among his long poems, ’Judith of Bethu- 
lia and Wyndham Tozvers show excellent blank 
verse and much good description: — 

“ The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. 

Dark were the days that came to Wyndham Towers 
With that grim secret rusting in its heart. 

* * * * ' * 

In the wide moat, run dry with summer drought, 

Great scarlet poppies lay in drifts and heaps, 

Like bodies fall’n there in some vain assault. 

Within, decay and dolor had their court— 

Dolor, decay, and silence, lords of all. 

From room to room the wind went shuddering 
On some vague endless quest; now pausing here 
To lift an arras, and then hurrying on, 

To some fresh clue, belike! The sharp-nosed mouse 
Through joist and floor discreetly gnawed her way, 

And for her glossy young a lodging made 
In a cracked corselet that once held a heart. 

The meditative spider undisturbed 
Wove his gray tapestry from sill to sill. 

Over the transom the stone eagle drooped, 

With one wing gone, in most dejected state 
Moulting his feathers. A blue poisonous vine, 

Whose lucent berry, hard as Indian jade, 

No squirrel tried his tooth on, June by June 
On the south hill-slope festered in the sun, 

Man’s foot came not there. It was haunted ground.” 

Aldrich’s Prose. — But perfectly finished as his 
poetry is, Aldrich’s greatest charm is in his prose 
—his short stories. Here he has a humorous 


LATER POETS 


129 


way of mystifying his readers, which is delightful. 
His Marjorie Daw is considered one of the best 
short stories ever written. 

Later Poets. — Since 1900 a change of spirit and 
of subject matter has come into our poetry. There 
is a drifting away from established ideas in thought, 
expression, and verse form. Influenced by the 
many nationalities of which America is composed, 
and influenced, no doubt, largely by the poetry of 
Walt Whitman, ideas are becoming more demo¬ 
cratic and revolutionary. Through their pictures 
of life the poets are demanding more humanitarian 
treatment of man, more opportunity for his social 
development, more charity for his shortcomings, 
and a restatement of his relation to God. They 
are demanding the right to choose for their poetry 
any subject, no matter how commonplace, and the 
freedom to express themselves in any way they 
choose. Rime and meter are still used, of course, 
by most of our poets, but their absence is often 
taken as a proof of individuality rather than as a 
fault. The scientific spirit of the age which in¬ 
sists upon looking at things as they are and calling 
them by their right names is also plainly felt. 
The poets are going to the world about them for 
their thoughts, rather than to books. They are 
casting aside stilted phrases and worn-out expres¬ 
sions. They are daring to be original. 

Though as yet nothing great has been produced, 
and no poet has arisen who touches strongly the 
heart of humanity, one noticeable feature is that 


130 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


much poetry is being written. Every week new 
volumes are issued by leading publishers. Only a 
few poets, however, who typify the more modern 
tendencies will be mentioned in this volume. 

, William Vaughn Moody (1869— 19 io), at the time 
of his death the greatest poet in America, shows 
in his poems the questioning spirit of the age, the 
general dissatisfaction with existing social and 
moral conditions which mark the New Movement 
in our poetry. 

He was born in Indiana, was graduated at Har¬ 
vard, and was for a few years instructor in English 
at the University of Chicago. He was a man of 
great intellectual ability, wide learning, and strong 
feeling. He writes of patriotism, human suffering, 
God, and the soul — themes eternal in their value, 
made into poems of high excellence by his imagi¬ 
native treatment. Many of his poems are more or 
less suggested by real incidents or situations in 
his own life, as Gloucester Moors ; Ode in Time of 
Hesitation; Road Hymn for the Start; and Good 
Friday Night. A Soldier Fallen in the Philippines 
is a good example of his patriotic fervor, which 
demands that America do right. A trilogy con¬ 
sisting of the poems The Fire Bringer, The Masque 
of Judgment , and The Death of Eve brings out 
his ideas of the relation of God and man. 

As few of Moody's poems are narrative in form, 
and also because both in thought and expression 
they make large demands upon imagination and 
experience, they are somewhat hard to understand. 


LATER POETS 


131 

Edwin A. Robinson (1869- ) is a poet who 

delights in depicting human nature just as it is. 
Many of his poems are sketches of odd or inter¬ 
esting characters, as Isaac and Archibald, two old 
men; Captain Craig, a wanderer, peddler, and 
beggar; and Aunt Imogen, an unmarried woman, 
all in a volume called Captain Craig . The Man 
against the Sky (1916), which places Robinson 
very high as a poet, contains the long poem, Ben 
Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford , in which 
there is a fine characterization of Shakespeare. 
The Town Down the River (1910) contains studies 
of Lincoln, Napoleon, and Theodore Roosevelt, 
the latter a great admirer of Robinson’s work. 

The simple, direct style in which these poems 
are written makes them works of art. Their origi¬ 
nality of thought and expression makes them 
decidedly modern, though there is no departure 
from meter and rime. A sadness pervades them, 
though not the sadness of despair, for Robinson’s 
fundamental belief is that what seems failure is 
often true success. 

He was born in Maine, but since leaving college 
has lived much of the time in New York. 

Josephine Preston Peabody Marks (1874— ), 

the wife of a Harvard professor, expresses moods 
of joy and love, and feelings of sympathy for the 
oppressed, in verse of arresting melody. Volumes 
called The Singing Leaves (1903), The Singing 
Man (1911), and Harvest Moon (1916) contain rep¬ 
resentative work. 


132 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Robert Frost ( 1 875— ), born in San Francisco, 

but of a New England father, writes in a realistic 
way of country life in New England, where he 
has lived principally since his tenth year. 

North of Boston (1914) made him famous. It 
is a volume of stories of New Hampshire folk, 
told in a verse form which much resembles prose. 
People and scenery are represented with much 
vividness, but his work depresses, for the poet has 
chosen too many characters which have degener¬ 
ated from the normal. A later volume, Mountain 
Interval (1916), dealing with the same locality, 
contains the short poem Birches , one of the best 
which Frost has written. 

Edgar Lee Masters (1868- ) is a revolutionary 

poet living in Chicago who wishes very much to 
overturn the world and bring about a different 
order of things. He has great sympathy with peo¬ 
ple who live cramped, monotonous lives. In 1915 
he published a volume of short poems called The 
Spoon River Anthology , which promptly called the 
attention of many readers. 

Spoon River purports to be a small town in the 
Middle West. The poems are supposed to be the 
epitaphs in the cemetery of this town, or rather, 
those lying in the graves of this cemetery are 
made to give the facts concerning their own lives 
and the causes of their deaths. There are two 
hundred and fourteen in the book who thus give 
an account of themselves. Each poem is conse¬ 
quently a character sketch, ironical, humorous, or 


LATER POETS 


133 


tragic, according to the person described. Though 
the author shows great knowledge of life, Spoon 
River \s too full of accounts of crime and disease 
to be pleasing. The poems are written in verse 
free from rime or meter — vers libre , it is called. 

Mr. Masters’s interest in human beings is further 
shown in his prose story, Mitch Miller (1920), the 
best boy’s story since Tom Sawyer. 

Carl Sandburg (1878- ), author of Chicago 

Poems, is even more revolutionary than Edgar 
Lee Masters. His style, he says, is his own. It 
is crude, coarse, sometimes brutal, lacking most of 
the elements of old-time poetry. It has no rime 
and very little rhythm, yet at times it shows 
moods of sympathy, tenderness, and beauty, while 
a powerful imagination is everywhere present. 

Much of his subject matter concerns current 
events and up-to-date questions, which will prevent 
his work from being long-lived, but Chicago Poems 
is one of the most original books that this age has 
produced. The first poem in the book, called 
Chicago , is strong, graphic, pitiless in its picture 
of the great city of Illinois. Killers is a terrible 
picture of the great World War, in which he 
speaks of sixteen million soldiers 

“ Eating and drinking, toiling ... on a long job of killing 
Sixteen million men.” 

Another volume called Cornhuskers appeared in 
1918, and Steel and Smoke , picturing the common¬ 
place incidents and events of everyday American 


134 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


life in shop, factory, and restaurant, was published 
in 1920. One critic has called this last group of 
poems “the angry voice of a poetic rebel.” 

Mr. Sandburg is of Swedish origin. Of himself 
he says: “ I’m an idealist. I don’t know where 
I’m going, but I’m on my way.” He has been 
engaged in newspaper work in Chicago, Milwau¬ 
kee, and other Western cities. 

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879— ) attempts to 

bring the singing quality back into poetry. His 
verse has a compelling rhythm. The Fireman's 
Ball , The Congo, and I Heard Immanuel Singing 
furnish good examples. 

Sara Teasdale (Mrs. Filsinger) (1884- ) sings 

exquisite songs full of emotion and beautiful de¬ 
scription. She uses simple poetic expressions, 
and has attained high perfection as a lyric writer. 
Flame and Shadow (1920) is a volume of love 
moods so perfect in craftsmanship that it seems 
imperishable. Her poems for children are also 
delightful, quaint in fancy, naive in sentiment. 

The imagists are a group of poets produced by 
the New Movement in poetry. They claim to 
have rediscovered beauty in our modern world, 
and to have the “ originality and honesty to affirm 
that beauty in whatever manner is native to the 
poet.” They believe in using the language of 
common speech; employing always the exact 
word; in creating rhythms that fit their moods; 
in allowing absolute freedom in the choice of sub¬ 
ject ; and in presenting particulars exactly, so that 


NOVELISTS 


135 


a clear, hard image is formed — hence, their name, 
Imagist. Their verse form is based upon cadence, 
and not upon rhythm, and to the uninitiated reads 
much like ordinary prose. 

John Gould Fletcher, Mrs. Aldington, and Amy 
Lowell are leading Imagists. The latter, in this 
“free verse” form, or vers libre , as the French 
call it, has written many poems, some rich in 
color, delicate in fancy, and artistic in tone, but 
one misses strength of purpose. However, this is 
in keeping with Miss Lowell’s idea of true poetry. 
She says “poetry should not try to teach”; that 
it should “exist simply because it is a created 
beauty.” But people differ as to what is beauty. 
Two of Miss Lowell’s volumes are called A Dome 
of Many Colored Glass (1912) and Sword Blades 
and Poppy Seed (1914). The vivid pictures pre¬ 
sented— see in the last-named volume A Lady , 
Music , White and Green , The Great Adventure of 
Max Breuck — fully justify the name Imagist. 

Novelists. — A great number of women novelists 
have gained particular prominence during the last 
fifty years. The names of Elizabeth Phelps Ward, 
Mary Wilkins Freeman, Margaret Deland, Mary 
N. Murfree (“ Charles Egbert Craddock ”), Frances 
Hodgson Burnett, and Edith Wharton deserve 
especial mention. Among the men, George W. 
Cable, Thomas Nelson Page, F. Hopkinson Smith, 
John Fox, Jr., James Lane Allen, Booth Tarking- 
ton, and Winston Churchill are some of those who 
have become prominent. But our novelists are 


136 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

legion. They come and go in public favor with 
hardly more lasting effect than the flowers of the 
field which live but for a season. Many of them 
do clever work and write very readable books ; but 
they fail to touch the heart of humanity strongly, 
and often give untrue estimates of what is worth 
striving for, while in character drawing the reader 
misses the stroke of the master. 

Bret Harte. — A story writer who attracted wide 
attention about 1870 was Francis Bret Harte (1839- 
1902). He was born in Albany, New York, but 
went to California while still in his teens, and 
finally became editor of The Overland Monthly. 
In this magazine appeared his story The Luck of 
Roaring Camp , which made Bret Harte famous, 
not only in this country, but in England. Indeed, 
the English praised his work more than Americans 
did, and England appeared so attractive to him 
that the last twenty years of his life were spent 
there. Bret Harte’s first great story was followed 
by a score of tales remarkable for correctness of 
form, originality, and vigor. He wrote principally 
of life in mining camps, and his work is valuable 
as a picture, not always true perhaps, of California 
in its early days. 

William Dean Howells (1837—1920) stands very 
high among modern novelists. He is known as a 
realist, because he paints life as he sees it, without 
altering it for the sake of dramatic or artistic 
effect. He wishes to set up no false ideals of self- 
sacrifice or of heroism, and accordingly his pages 


NOVELISTS 


137 


are filled with ordinary, everyday people who have 
everyday adventures and experiences; and yet 
there is so much humor shown in his writings, and 
so much insight into character, that with many 
readers Howells’s stories hold their own in interest 
with more exciting tales. Among his best novels 
are The Lady of the Aroostook , The Rise of Silas 
Lapham , The Minister's Charge , and A Hazard 
of New Fortunes . 

Howells is not only a novelist, however, but a 
dramatist, a poet, a writer of charming books of 
travel, a delightful essayist, and a critic of con¬ 
temporary literature. His dramatic work is in the 
light form known as the farce, and has been very 
popular. The Mouse Trap , The Albany Depot , 
and The Parlor Car have given many an hour of 
delightful amusement. His books of travel began 
with Venetian Life (1866) and Italian Journeys 
(1867). More recent sketches are London Films 
(1905) and Certain Delightful English Towns 
(1906). Some of his Criticisms are found in the 
volumes entitled Heroines of Fiction and The Art 
of the Novelist. 

Howells was born in Ohio, but lived most of 
the time after 1865 either in Boston and vicinity or 
in New York. He was consul to Venice during the 
Civil War; later he edited The Atlantic Monthly , 
and had various connections with other magazines. 
He went abroad several times after his consulship, 
but his feelings remained intensely American, as 
all his writings show. 


138 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Henry James (1843-19 1 6) also is a realist in 
fiction. He was born in New York, was educated 
mainly in Europe, and lived in England for many 
years. Consequently he ktiew life on both sides 
of the Atlantic, and wrote what has been called 
the international novel. The titles of some of his 
books are The American , The Europeans , Daisy 
Miller , The Portrait of a Lady , The Bostonians , 
The Wings of the Dove , and The Golden Bowl. 

The characters in these books are highly cul¬ 
tured modern people, who are described with so 
minute an analysis of looks, manners, and mind 
that to many people Mr. James seems a tiresome 
writer, while to others he is a skillful master. This 
ability to make fine distinctions in mood and char¬ 
acter has won for him the unqualified approval of 
a small cultured audience, but a great number of 
readers do not understand him. 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, “Mark Twain” ( 183 5 — 
191o), is ranked by some critics as the greatest 
American writer of his time. To many he is known 
simply as a humorist, but he is much more, for 
his writings are both literary and philosophical. 
He was born in Florida, Missouri, and at thirteen 
was working in his brother’s'printing office. Then 
we find him as a journeyman printer in Cincinnati, 
New York, and Philadelphia. When the Civil War 
broke out, he entered the Southern army. Later 
he was a pilot on the Mississippi River, and from 
the customary remark of the leadsman when he 
found the steamboat in two fathoms of water — 


MARK TWAIN 


139 


“ Mark twain!” — he took the pseudonym which 
he made his in literature. After some time as pilot, 
he become secretary to his brother in Nevada, then 
went to California and the Hawaiian Islands. A 
trip that he took up the Mediterranean resulted in 
Innocents Abroad , which established beyond ques¬ 
tion his right to be called a great humorist. His 
last years were spent in Connecticut and in New 
York City. 

Tom Sawyer , Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut 
Yankee at the Court of King Arthur ; The Prince 
and the Pauper , and Pudd'nhead Wilson are the 
titles of some of his later books. But besides 
books, Mark Twain wrote numberless short articles 
on such a variety of subjects that it is impossible 
to do more than hint at his work. As he was a 
great traveler, his writings picture conditions in 
many lands. In 1895-1896 he made a trip around 
the world lecturing, in order to pay off a debt of 
nearly one hundred thousand dollars incurred by 
a publishing house with which he was connected. 
As this debt did not bind him legally, his act won 
the admiration of all lovers of honesty. 

Mark Twain’s Humor is not of the delicate, grace¬ 
ful style, like Irving’s, but is all-convulsing — some¬ 
times uproarious. It comes from incongruity of 
ideas, exaggeration, and irreverence for certain 
things which superstition has put on a pedestal. 

His Literary Qualities. — The high literary quali¬ 
ties of his work are shown in the creation of real 
characters, like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry 


140 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Finn; in his dramatic power; and in the true 
pictures that he has given of certain kinds of life, 
in America especially. His object is not simply 
to make fun, but to bring out some truth, to sug¬ 
gest some reform in thought or action; and so 
successfully has he done this, that he may be 
counted among the world’s moralists. 

Mark Twain’s Prominence. — He is SO thoroughly 
American at every point — such a hater of oppres¬ 
sion, such a lover of equal rights, so filled with 
common sense — that his Americanism alone would 
give him prominence. His worth was recognized 
in many ways, most conspicuously by the honorary 
degrees conferred on him by the universities of 
Missouri and Yale in this country, and by Oxford 
in England (1907). 

Francis Richard Stockton (1834-1902) is an¬ 
other humorist of decidedly original flavor. He 
stands alone in his style, and that style is most 
amusing. 

He was born in Philadelphia, had only a high 
school education, and began life as an engraver. 
He soon entered upon newspaper work, was on the 
editorial staff of Scribner s Magazine , and became 
connected with St. Nicholas. In 1879 appeared 
that unique story, Rudder Grange , and in 1884 
his most popular short story, The Lady or the 
Tiger ? 

Stockton’s stories are all improbable tales, filled 
with absurd situations and the queerest people, 
who do ridiculous things. These stories do not 


JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS 


141 

show so deep a study of life and the needs of man¬ 
kind as Mark Twain’s do, but they contain many a 
clever satire on whims and foibles. We laugh, and 
are glad that he wrote. Among his noted books 
are The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. 
Ale shine, The Late Mrs. Null , and The Merry 
Chanter. 

Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) writes minutely 
and accurately of the negro of the South and 
of the Georgia “cracker.” Harris was born in 
Georgia, and at the age of twelve was employed 
at a printing office on a plantation near his home. 
Here in his leisure hours, besides entering into the 
festivities of the place and reading extensively in 
his employer’s library, he watched the negroes at 
at their work, and stole into their cabins and lis¬ 
tened to their quaint stories. Later, he became a 
journalist and an editor. Being one day asked to 
supply material for a vacant column in an Atlanta 
paper, he wrote a negro story that he had heard as 
a boy. The paper asked for more, and to his sur¬ 
prise, Harris soon found himself famous. 

These stories cluster around a central figure, 
Uncle Remus, who amuses a little boy of seven by 
telling him of the tricks and antics of Br’er Rabbit, 
Br’er Fox, and other animals. Together they make 
a valuable contribution to literature, for besides 
giving the world an interesting, original character 
in Uncle Remus, they preserve to us the supersti¬ 
tion, humor, philosophy, and childishness of the 
old-time negro. They are collected in several vol- 


142 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


umes, some of which are : Uncle Remus , His Songs 
and His Sayings; Nights with Uncle Remus; 
Uncle Remus and His Friends. Their writing has 
secured for Harris a permanent place in American 
literature. 

His stories of the “crackers,” or poor whites, 
have the same realism as his stories of the negroes. 
Teague Poteet is as true to life as Uncle Remus, 
a sympathetic sketch which adds to Harris’s fame. 
In Mingo and Other Stories we find the cracker 
portrayed. 

Margaret Deland (1857- ), born in Pennsyl¬ 

vania, but for many years a resident of Boston, has 
done work of a very high order. She deals with 
great moral and social forces, showing the human 
soul destroyed or redeemed, or character raised or 
debased, through some agent within the person 
himself. The Awakening of Helena Richie and 
The Iron Woman are two of her strongest novels. 

Her collection of short stories, Old Chester Tales 
and Dr. Lavendar's People , are altogether charm¬ 
ing and bid fair to become classics. Dr. Lavendar 
himself, with his wisdom, humor, sympathy, and 
goodness, is one of the most lovable characters in 
all fiction. 

Edith Wharton (1862- ), a native of New 

York, has published many novels since 1900. One 
of them, The House of Mirth (1905), attracted 
very wide attention. This is a satire on the fash¬ 
ionable world, showing its heartlessness and lack 
of noble ideals. Xingu (1916) is in the same 


THE SHORT STORY 


143 


vein. Other novels, as The Fruit of the Tree 
(1907) and Ethan Frome (1911), trace the develop¬ 
ment of the mental and moral life of the characters 
portrayed, and reveal Mrs. Wharton as a great 
artist. In keenness of insight she is unsurpassed 
by any writer of her time. A later novel, The Age 
of Innocence (1920), with scenes principally in 
New York, is, however, much inferior to her former 
work. 

Winston Churchill (1871- ) is more widely 

read than some of the other great writers, probably 
because he caught the taste of the people in his 
historical novel, Richard Carvel (1890). This is a 
most interesting story of the American Revolution, 
with Paul Jones, the naval hero, as one of the 
characters. An appealing love story links the ex¬ 
citing adventures, which shift from Maryland to 
London, and altogether, with its ease of style, the 
book is very pleasing. Later books, as The Crisis 
(1901), which deals with the Civil War; Coniston 
(1906), picturing the dangers of corrupt politics; 
and The Inside of the Cup (1912), criticizing the 
church in its relation to social evils, are not so 
charming. 

The Short Story. — Critics tell us that the Amer¬ 
ican short story is the best art form of its kind in 
any literature. About 1890 it reached its highest 
point of development, with Hamlin Garland (1860) 
as its most distinctive writer. He was born in the 
Middle West, and his stories, written with serious¬ 
ness and intense feeling, picture the hard life on 


144 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


the farms of his boyhood home. Collections called 
Main- Traveled Roads (1891); Prairie Folks (1893); 
and Other Main-Traveled Roads (1910), show his 
best work. 

Grace King (1852- ) wrote of the Creoles of 

New Orleans in Monsieur Motte (1888) and Tales 
of a Time and Place (1892). Kate Chopin (1851— 
1904) also wrote of the South in Bayou Folk (1894). 
She was a wonderful story teller, humorous, emo¬ 
tional, dramatic. James Lane Allen (1849- ), in 

Flute and Violin (1891), wrote tales full of literary 
charm “ combined with deep soundings into the 
heart of human life.” Alice French (1850) wrote 
many Western stories ; Knitters in the Sun (1887) 
is probably the best collection. Richard Harding 
Davis (1864-1916), author of Gallagher (1891), 
Van Bibber and Others (1892), wrote humorously 
of the idle rich of New York. Henry c. Bunner 
(1855-1896), author of Short Sixes (1891), did 
much toward making the short story a work of art. 
His stories are vivacious, witty, and wholesome. 
Alice Brown (1857- ) wrote of New England 

life in Tiverton Tales (1899) and The Country Road 
(1906). Mary Wilkins Freeman (1862- ) also 

wrote of New England, picturing with grim realism 
in A Humble Romance (1887), A New Englaiid 
Nun and Other Stories (1891), a fast vanishing 
type of country character. 

Since 1900 the short story has continued in 
popularity. Americans demand quick results, and 
the short story, with its compression of detail, 


THE DRAMA 


145 


rapidity of movement, and sharpness of characteri¬ 
zation, satisfies that demand. The writers are so 
many, however, that it would be difficult to enu¬ 
merate them. Many writers of novels are also 
short story writers. 

The Drama. — America has as yet produced no 
great drama. We have, however, had a number 
of playwrights who have written successful plays 
dealing with American life. Among them are 
Bronson Howard (1842-1908), author of Shenan¬ 
doah , a play of the Civil War; James A. Herne 
(1839-1901), author of Shore Acres; William Gil¬ 
lette (1855- ), Held by the Enemy; Augustus 

Thomas (1859- ), who wrote Arizona and The 

Witching Hour ; David Belasco ( 1 85 9 — ), author 
of The Girl of the Golden West and The Rose of 
the Rancho; Clyde Fitch (1865-1909), The 
Climbers; William Vaughn Moody (1869—1910), The 
Great Divide; Edward Sheldon (1886- ), The 

Boss and Salvation Nell. 

Two playwrights, whose dramas have a much 
higher literary value than those mentioned, are 
Percy MacKaye (l 875 ~ ) and Josephine Preston 

Peabody Marks ( 1874- ). Mr. MacKaye’s plays 

cover a wide range of subjects: mythology, history, 
literature, modern life. Three of them are : Fenris 
the Wolf \ The Canterbury Pilgrims , and Jeanne 
d'Arc. He also is prominent as a writer of 
masques and pageants, an elaborate form of the 
drama often given out of doors, and usually written 
for some important historic or other great occasion. 


146 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Sanctuary , a Bird Masque , by Mr. Mac Kaye, was 
given in New Hampshire in honor of President 
and Mrs. Wilson. 

The Little Theater Movement. — Most theater 
managers produce plays which they think will 
pay. Ticket receipts are more important to them 
than literary value, when they choose what to put 
on the boards. There is little opportunity, there¬ 
fore, for the production of purely artistic drama or 
for amateur plays. Because of this, in order to 
give playwrights freedom for more original and 
artistic work, and simultaneously with a like move¬ 
ment in Europe, little theaters have been opened 
all over this country, where writers, aiming more 
at the future of the drama than at money-making, 
have tried out their creations. Often their plays are 
of one act only, differing from the longer play as 
the short story differs from the novel. Often 
amateur actors are the performers, thus widening 
still further the distance between the Little Theater 
plays and the commercial drama. One-act plays 
which have had some degree of popularity are: 
Sam Average , by Percy MacKaye, and The Merry , 
Merry Cuckoo , by Jeannette Marks, both produced 
in the Toy Theater, Boston. Others are: In the 
Zone , by Eugene G. O’Neill, originally produced 
in 1917 by the Washington Square Players, New 
York; Suppressed Desires , by George Cram Cook 
and Susan Glaspell, also given in ,New York by 
the Provincetown Players; and Mrs. Pat and the 
Law , by Mary Aldis, given at the Little Theater, 


WRITERS OF ESSAYS 


147 


founded in 1910 by Mrs. Aldis, at her home in 
Lake Forest, Illinois. The singleness of impres¬ 
sion of these one-act plays, whether it be dramatic, 
humorous, tragic, or poetic, has produced an art- 
type which bids fair to be permanent. 

Writers of Essays have been very numerous, and 
consequently a wide range of subjects, religious, 
historical, and literary, has been covered. 

Standing out from the group, as a writer of the 
familiar essay, is Agnes Repplier (1857- ), whose 

witty, vivacious style has many admirers among 
cultured people. Most of her writings deal with 
the world of books, but one volume, In Our Con¬ 
vent Days , describes youthful experiences at school. 
Other volumes of her essays are called A Happy 
Half Century (1908), Books and Men (1888), and 
Points of Friction (1920). The latter volume con¬ 
tains delightful essays on Woman Enthroned , The 
Strayed Prohibitionist, and Money. 

Samuel McChord Crothers (l 857 “ )> a Uni¬ 

tarian clergyman of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
attracts many readers by the wisdom of his essays 
and his humorous turn of thought. He too, like 
Miss Repplier, draws most of his subjects from the 
world of books. Representative collections of his 
essays are: The Pardoner's Wallet (i 9 ° 5 ) an d 
The Pleasures of an Absentee Landlord (1916). 

John Burroughs ( 1 837- ) and John Muir ( 1 838- 
1914) write delightfully of nature. Burroughs is 
the author of Wake Robin (1871) and Ways of 
Nature (1905); Muir, of The Mountains of Cali- 


148 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


fornia (1894) and My First Summer in the Sierra 
( 1911 ). Henry van Dyke ( 1 8 5 2 - ) charms with 

his fresh pictures of outdoor life, in volumes called 
Little Rivers (1895- ) and Fisherman's Luck 

(1899); while Paul Elmer More (1864— ) by his 

scholarly material and literary style has given 
America an official critic. His Shelburne Essays, 
so called from the name of the town where they 
were written, deal principally with English and 
American writers. He was born in St. Louis, 
educated at Harvard and in Europe, and for a while 
was a teacher of Sanscrit. 

CONCLUSION 

The long list of names at the end of this chapter 
will perhaps give one a better idea of the extent of 
contemporary American literature than anything 
which has been said in the previous pages. Stories, 
poems, histories, essays, biographies, and criticisms 
abound. We are not satisfied, however long and 
comprehensive though the list may be. American 
authors write well, but we miss the master. We 
wish for greater poets, greater novelists, greater 
interpreters of life. It is said our age is too hur¬ 
ried, too full of schemes for money making, too 
material, for the best literary work to be pro¬ 
duced. But be that as it may, we still believe 
in the intellectual life of our nation, that out of 
the mixture of Saxon and Norman and Dane, of 
Italian, German, and Celt, some day, somewhere, 


SUMMARY 


149 


in this great country of ours, the genius will arise 
who will write of the past, the present, and the 
time to come in such a strain that all the world 
will pause to hear. 

READING FOR CHAPTER IX 

Stedman. — Pan in Wall Street; The Hand of Lincoln*, 
The Undiscovered Country ; Hebe; Aaron Burr's Wooing. 

Aldrich. — The Ballad of Babie Bell. Prose : Story of a 
Bad Boy; Marjorie Daw. 

Howells. — Doorstep Acquaintances , found in Suburban 
Sketches. 

James. — A Passionate Pilgrim. 

Mark Twain. — Selections from Torn Sawyer. 

Stockton. — The Bee Man of Orn and The Lady or the 
Tiger ? found in his collection of short stories. 

Moody. — Gloucester Moors; A Soldier Fallen in the 
Philippines. 

Robinson. — Isaac and Archibald. 

Frost. — Birches ; An Old Man's Winter Night. 

Masters. — Mitch Miller. Selections from Spoon River. 

Sandburg. — Chicago ; Fellow Citizens ; Fog. 

Lindsay. — The Firetnan's Ball. 

Harris. — Nights with Uncle Remus. 

Deland. — Old Chester Tales. 

Amy Lowell. — The Great Adventure of Max Breuck; 
The Little Garden. 


150 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

LATER WRITERS 


Poetry 

1. Lucy Larcom, 1824-1893: 

Wild Roses of Cape Ann. 

2. Charles Godfrey Leland, 

1824-1903: Hans Breit- 
mann's Ballads; Anglo- 
Romany Songs. 

3. Helen Hunt Jackson, 1831- 

1885 : Sonnets a?id Lyrics. 

4. Edmund Clarence Stedman, 

1833-1908 : Alice of Mon¬ 
mouth ; The Blameless 
Prince. 

5. Celia Thaxter, 1835-1894: 

Drift-Weed; The Cruise 
of the Mystery and Other 
Poems. 

6. Louise Chandler Moulton, 

1835-1908: In the Gardeti 
of Dreams, Lyrics, and Son¬ 
nets. 

7. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836- 

1907 : Windham Tower; 
Judith of Bethulia. 

8. Eugene Field, 1850-1895: A 

Little Book of Western 
Verse. 

9. Cincinnatus Heine Miller 

(“Joaquin Miller"), 1841- 
1913: Songs of the Sierras. 

10. Edward Rowland Sill, 1841- 

1887: The Hermitage; The 
Fool's Prayer. 

11. Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886: 

Success; A Service of 
Song; Hope. 


12. Emma Lazarus, 1849-1887: 

Admetus and Other Poems. 

13. Henry van Dyke, 1852-: The 

Toiling of Felix and Other 
Poems. 

14. Edith M. Thomas, 1854-: 

Lyrics and Sonnets. 

15. James Whitcomb Riley, 1853- 

1916: Neighborly Poems; 
Poems Here at Home. 

16. Frank Dempster Sherman, 

i860-: Lyrics. 

17. Madison Julius Cawein, 1865- 

1914: Lyrics and Idyls. 

18. Bliss Carman, 1861-: Low 

Tide on Grand Pre; Songs 
from Vagabondia. 

19. William Vaughn Moody, 

1869-1910: Poems and 

Poetic Dramas. 

20. Edwin A. Robinson, 1869-: 

Captain Craig; The Town 
Down the River ; The Chil¬ 
dren of the Night. 

21. Josephine Preston Peabody 

Marks, 1874-: The Way¬ 
farers; The Singing Leaves; 
The Singmg Man; The 
Piper; Harvest Moon. 

22. Robert Frost, 1875-: North 

of Boston ; Mountain Inter¬ 
val. 

23. Edgar Lee Masters, 1868-: 

Spoon River Anthology; 
Songs and Satires; The 
Great Valley, Toward the 
Gulf; Mitch Miller. 


SUMMARY 


24. Carl Sandburg, 1878-: 

Chicago Poems ; Cornhusk- 
ers ; Steel and Smoke. 

25. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, 

1879-: General William 
Booth Enters into Heaven 
and Other Poems; The 
Congo and Other Poems; 
The Chinese Nightingale 
and Other Poems. 

26. Sara Teasdale, 1884-: Son¬ 

nets to Duse and Other 
Poems; Helen of Troy; 
Flame and Shadow. 

27. Conrad Aiken, 1889-: Earth 

Triumphant and Other 
Tales in Verse ; Turns and 
Movies. 

28. Lincoln Colcord, 1883-: 

Visions of War. 

29. Ezra Pound, 1885-: Lustra. 

30. John Gould Fletcher, 1886-: 

Goblins and Pagodas. 

31. Mrs. Aldington (“ H. D.”), 

1886-: Sea Garden. 

32. Amy Lowell, 1874: A Dome 

of Many Colored Glass; 
Sword Blades and Poppy 
Seeds; Men , Women, and 
Ghosts. 

33. Alan Seegar, 1888-1916: 

Poems; Letters and Diary. 

Prose 

I. The Novel and Story 

1. Adeline D. T. Whitney, 1824- 

1906: Faith Gartney's Girl¬ 
hood ; Leslie Goldthwait. 

2. Lewis Wallace, 1827-1903: 

Ben-Hur, a Tale of the 
Christ; The Prince of 
India. 


151 

3. Silas Weir Mitchell, 1829- 

1914: Hugh Wynne. 

4. Helen Hunt Jackson, 1831- 

1885: Ramona. 

5. Louisa May Alcott, 1832- 

1888 : Little Women ; Little 
Men. 

6. Francis Richard Stockton, 

1834-1902: Rudder Grange; 
The House of Martha. 

7. Samuel L. Clemens (“ Mark 

Twain”), 1835-1910: Ad¬ 
ventures of Tom Sawyer; 
Pudd'nhead Wilson. 

8. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1839- 

1907 : The Story of a Bad 
Boy; Marjorie Daw and 
Other People. 

9. William Dean Howells, 1837- 

1920: A Modern Instance; 
The Rise of Silas Lapham. 

10. Edward Eggleston, 1837- 

1903: The Hoosier School¬ 
master. 

11. Albion Winegar Tourg6e, 

1838-1905: A Fool's Er¬ 
rand; Bricks without 
Straw. 

12. Francis Hopkinson Smith, 

1838-1915: Colonel Carter 
of Cartersville. 

13. Francis Bret Harte, 1839- 

1902: The Luck of Roaring 
Camp. 

14. Henry James, 1843-1916: The 

Portrait of a Lady; The 
Bostonians. 

15. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, 

1844-1911: A Singular Life; 
Dr. Zay. 

16. George W. Cable, 1844- : 

Creole Days. 


152 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


17. Maurice Thompson, 1844- 

1901: Alice of Old Vin¬ 
cennes. 

18. Sarah Orne Jewett, 1849-1909: 

The Country of the Pointed 
Firs ; A Country Doctor. 

19. Frances Hodgson Burnett, 

1849-: That Lass o' Low- 
rie's; Little Lord Fauntle- 
roy; The Shuttle. 

20. Julian Hawthorn, 1846-: 

Beatrice Randolph; Garth. 

21. Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, 

1848-1895: Gunnar ,a Norse 
Romance. 

22. Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1857-: 

Timothy's Quest; Rebecca 
of Sunny brook Farm. 

23. James Lane Allen, 1848-: A 

Kentucky Cardinal; The 
Choir Invisible. 

24. Mary Noailles Murfree, 

(“ Charles Egbert Crad¬ 
dock”), 1850-: In the Ten¬ 
nessee Mountains; The 
Prophet of the Great Smoky 
Mountain. 

25. Alice French (“ Octave 

Thanet ”), 1850- : Knitters 
in the Sun. 

26. Francis Marion Crawford, 

1854-1909: Mr. Isaacs; 
Saracinesca. 

27. Thomas Nelson Page, 1853-: 

Marse Chan ; Polly; Red 
Rock. 

28. Ruth McEnery Stuart, 1856-: 

The Story of Babette; 
Sonny. 

29. Margaret Wade Deland, 

1857- : John Ward, 


Preacher; The Wisdom 
of Fools. 

30. Mary Wilkins Freeman, 

1862-: A Humble Ro¬ 

mance; Jerome; A New 
England Nun. 

31. John Fox, Jr., 1863-: The 

Kentuckians; The Little 
Shepherd of Kingdom 
Come. 

32. Richard Harding Davis, 1864- 

1916: The Princess Aline ; 
Soldiers of Fortune. 

33. Mary Johnston, 1870-: Pris¬ 

oners of Hope ; To Have 
and to Hold. 

34. Winston Churchill, 1871-: 

Richard Carvel; The 
Crisis. 

35. Edith Wharton, 1862-: The 

Valley of Decision; The 
House of Mirth. 

36. Newton Booth Tarkington, 

1869-: The Gentle?nan 

from Indiana. 

37. Paul Leicester Ford, 1865- 

1902: The Honorable 

Peter Sterling; Janice 
Meredith. 

38. Joel Chandler Harris, 1848- 

1908: Nights with Uncle 
Remus; Mingo and Other 
Sketches in Black and 
White; Uncle Remus, His 
Songs and His Sayings; 
On the Plantation. 

39. Robert Herrick, 1868-: The 

Common Lot; A Life for a 
Life; Clark's Field; One 
Woman’s Life. 

40. Theodore Dreiser, 1871-: 

The Genius; The Finan¬ 
cier ; The Titan. 


SUMMARY 


153 


41. Jack London, 1876-1917 : The 
Call of the Wild; The Sea 
Wolf; Before Adam. 

II. Essays and Criticism 

1. Edmund Clarence Stedman, 

1:833-1908: Victorian Poets ; 
Poets of America; The 
Nature and Elements of 
Poetry. 

2. William Winter, 1836-1917: 

Shakespeare's England ; 

Gray Days and Gold. 

3. John Burroughs, 1837-: 

Wake-Robin ; Indoor 

Studies. 

4. Laurence Hutton, 1843-1904: 

Other Times and Other 
Seasons ; Plays and Players. 

5. Hamilton Wright Mabie, 

1846-: My Study Fire; 
Books and Culture. 

6. Henry van Dyke, 1852- : The 

Poetry of Tennyson ; Fisher¬ 
man's Luck , and Other Un¬ 
certain Things. 

7. James Brander Matthews, 

1852: French Dramatists 
of the Nineteenth Century; 
Essays in English. 

8. Robert Grant, 1852-: The Re¬ 

flections of a Married Man ; 
Search-Light Letters. 

9. George Edward Woodberry, 

1855-: Makers of Litera¬ 
ture; The Appreciation of 
Literature; Great Writers. 

10. Agnes Repplier, 1857-: Books 

and Men; Essays in 
Idleness. 

11. Samuel M. Crothers, 1857-: 

The Gentle Reader; The 


Pardoner's Wallet; The 
Absentee Landlord. 

12. John Muir, 1838-1914: The 

Mountains of California; 
My First Summer in the 
Sierra. 

13. Bliss Perry, i860-: A Study 

of Prose Fiction; Walt 
Whitman, His Life and 
Work ; Park Street Papers. 

14. Paul Elmer More, 1864-: 

Shelburne Essays. 

15. Francis B. Gummere, 1855-: 

The Beginning of Poetry; 
Democracy and Poetry. 

16. William James, 1842-1910: 

The Will to Believe and 
Other Essays in Popular 
Philosophy. 

III. History and Biography 

1. Ulysses S. Grant, 1822-1885: 

Personal Memoirs. 

2. Henry Charles Lea, 1825- 

1909: Studies in Church 
History ; History of the In¬ 
quisition of the Middle Ages. 

3. Justin Winsor, 1831-1897: 

Narrative and Critical 
History of America ; 
Christopher Columbus. 

4. Andrew Dickson White, 

1832-: The New Germany. 

5. Hubert Howe Bancroft, 

1832-: History of the 

Pacific States. 

6 . Charles Francis Adams, 1835- 

1915 : Massachusetts ; Its 
Historians and Its History. 

7. Moses Coit Tyler, 1835-1900: 

History of American Litera¬ 
ture from 1607-1765; The 


154 


AMERICAN LITERATURE 


Literary History of the 
American Revolution. 

8. Henry Adams, 1838-1918: 

John Randolph; History 
of the United States. 

9. James Schouler, 1839-: His¬ 

tory of the United States 
under the Constitution. 

10. Thomas R. Lounsbury, 1838- 

1915: History of the English 
Language ; Jaynes Fenimore 
Cooper ; Studies in Chaucer. 

11. Alfred T. Mahan, 1840-1918: 

Influence of Sea Power 
upoti History , 1660-1783. 

12. John Clark Ridpath, 1841- 

1900: Popular History of 
the United States; Great 
Races of Mankind. 

13. John Fiske, 1842-1901: Myths 

and Myth-Makers; Dar¬ 


winism ; The Beginnings 
of New England. 

14. Henry Cabot Lodge, 1850-: 

The Story of the American 
Revolution; Alexander 
Hamilton. 

15. John Bach McMaster, 1852-: 

A History of the People of 
the United States. 

16. Charles Francis Richardson, 

1851-1913: Aynerican Lit¬ 
erature, 1607-1883. 

17. Barrett Wendell, 1855-: Life 

of Cotton Mather ; Literary 
History of America. 

18. Woodrow Wilson, 1856-: 

Congressional Government ; 
Eleyyieyits of Historical and 
Political Politics. 

19. Theodore Roosevelt, 1858- 

1918 : Life of Thomas Hart 
Benton; The Naval War 
of 1812 ; Oliver Cromwell. 


INDEX 


Aaron Burr's Wooing, 135. 
Abraham Davenport, 80. 

Abraham Lincoln, 127. 

Absalom, 45. 

Adams, John, 21, 31. 

Adams, Samuel, 21. 

Albany Depot, The, 130. 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 124, 125, 
127-129, 135. 

Alhambra, The, 41. 

Alice of Monmouth, 126, 127. 

Allen, James Lane, 129. 

Alnwick Castle, 44. 

American, The, 131. 

American Flag, The, 43. 

American Note-Books, 75. 

American Orations, no. 

American Scholar, The, 67. 
Among My Books, 87. 

Antiquity of Freedom, 47. 

Appian Way, The, 103. 

Arthur Bonnicastle, 91. 

Art of the Novelist, The, 131. 
Atlantic Monthly, The, 84, 90, 127, 
I3i- 

Autobiography, Franklin’s, 23, 24, 
3i- 

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 
The, 90, 92. 

A'vis, 89. 

Babie Bell, 127, 135. 

Ballad of the Oysterman, The, 89. 
Bancroft, George, in, 115-116,118. 
Barbara Frietchie, 80. 

Barefoot Boy, 82, 92. 

Barlow, Joel, 28, 29, 31. 

Battle of the Kegs, 28, 31. 

Bay Psalm Book, 14. 


Bedouin Song, 95, 104. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 108. 

Bee Man of Orn, The, 135. 

Bells, The , 53, 56. 

Biglow Papers, The, 85. 
Biographical Stories, 75. 
Bitter-sweet, 91. 

Blameless Prince, The, 127. 

Blithe dale Romance, 75, 77. 
Bostonians, The, 131. 

Boys, The, 89, 92. 

Bracebridge Hall, 40. 

Bradford, Governor, 6. 

Bradstreet, Anne, 15-17, 19, 20. 
Brooks, Phillips, 108. 

Brown, Charles Brockden, 50. 
Brushwood, 103. 

Bryant, William Cullen, 45-48, 56, 
no. 

Building of the Ship, The, 62, 92. 
Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 129. 
Burns, 44. 

Cable, George W., 129. 

Calhoun, John C., 105, 106. 

Cary, Alice, 103. 

Cary, Phoebe, 103. 

Cary Sisters, The, 103. 

Cassandra Southwick, 81, 92. 
Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and 
Mrs. Aleshine, The, 134. 
Cavalry Song, 126. 

Century Magazine, The, 91. 

Certain Delightful English Towns, 
I3I- 

Chambered Nautilus, The, 89, 92. 
Changeling, The, 80. 

Channing, William Ellery, 25, 57, 
108. 


*55 



156 


INDEX 


Choate, Rufus, 106, 107, 108, no. 
Chronicle of the Conquest of Gra¬ 
nada, A, 41. 

Churchill, Winston, 129. 
Circumstances Favorable to the 
Progress of Literature in 
America , 108, no. 

Clay, Henry, 105. 

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 132- 

133 - 

Columbia , 28. 

Columbiad , The, 29, 31. 
Commemoration Ode, 86. 
Compensation, 92. 

Conclusion, 134. 

Concord Hymn, 68. 

Conduct of Life, 67. 

Connecticut Yankee at the Court of 
King Arthur, A, 132. 

Conquest of Canaan, 28. 

Conquest of Mexico, 112. 

Conquest of Peru, 112. 

Conspiracy of Pontiac, The, 117. 
Contemplations, 16. 

Contentment, 89, 92. 

Cooke, John Esten, 51. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 48-51, 
56, 118. 

Corn, 102. 

Count Frontenac and New France 
under Louis XIV, 117. 
Courtship of Miles Standish, The, 
62. 

“ Craddock, Charles Egbert," 129. 
Crystal, The, 102. 

Culprit Fay, The, 43-44, 56. 

Curtis, Qeorge William, no. 

Daisy Miller, 131. 

Dana, Jr., Richard Henry, 91. 

Day of Doom, The, 17, 18. 

Death of Slavery, The, 47. 

Death of the Flowers, The, 47, 56. 
Deerslayer , The, 50. 

Deland, Margaret, 129. 


Descent into the Maelstrom (mar- 
strum), A, 55. 

Description of New England, A, 

3 - 

Dial, The, 70. 

Diamond Wedding, The, 125. 

Diary, A Famous, 13. 

Discovery of the Great West, The, 
n 7 . 

Divine Tragedy, The, 63. 

Doorstep Acquaintance, 135. 

Drake, Joseph Rodman, 42, 43. 
Dream Life, 91. 

Dr. Heidegger’’s Experiment, 92. 
Drifting, 103. 

Dutchman's Fireside, The, 43. 

Duty of the American Scholar to 
Politics and the Times, no. 
Dwight, Timothy, 28, 31. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 7, 11-13, 20. 

Elsie Venner, 90. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 57, 64-69, 
92. 

Eulogy on Webster, no. 

Eureka, 55. 

Europeans, The, 131. 

Evangeline, 62, 92, 95. 

Everett, Edward, 106, 107-108, no. 

Faerie Queene, The, 83. 

Fa?ne and Glory, 109. 

Fanny, 44. 

Fall of the House of Usher , The, 

55 . 56 . 

Farewell Address, Washington’s, 
28, 31. 

Faust (fowst), 95. 

Federalist, The, 26, 27. 

Ferdinand and Isabella, 118. 
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Decla¬ 
ration of Independence of the 
United States of America, 108. 
Fireside Travels, 87. 

I First Bunker Hill Oration, no. 





INDEX 


157 


Fisher and Charon (ka'ron), The, 
104. 

Four Elements, 15. 

Four Monarchies, 15. 

Fox, Jr., John, 129. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 22-25, 3 1 * 
Freeman, Mary Wilkins, 129. 
French and Italian Note-Books , 75. 
Freneau (fre-no'j, Philip, 30, 31. 

Garden of Irem, The, 104. 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 58, 79. 
General History of Virginia, 3. 
Gettysburg , 127. 

Gettysburg Address, 109. 

Gold Bug, The, 56. 

Golden Bowl, The, 131. 

Golden Legend, 63. 

Good Word for Winter, A, 87. 
Grandfather's Chair, 75. 

Gray Champion, The, 92. 

Green River, 47, 56. 

Guardian Angel, The, 90. 

Ha'gar in the Wilderness, 45. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 92. 
Half-Century of Conflict, A, 117. 
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 42, 44. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 26, 27. 

Hand of Lincoln, The, 135. 

Hannah Thurston, 95. 

Harte, Francis Bret, 129-130. 
Hartford Wits, The, 28. 

Harvard College, 9. 

Harvard, John, 7. 

Hasty Pudding, 29, 31. 

Haunted Palace, The, 53. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 18, 56, 73- 
78, 92. 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 103-104. 
Hazard of New Fortunes, A, 130. 
He'be, 135. 

Height of the Ridiculous, The, 89. 
Henry, Patrick, 21. 

Heroines of Fiction, 131. 


Hiawatha, 62. 

Historians, The, in. 

History of New England, The, 6. 
History of Philip the Second, 112. 
History of Plymouth Plantation, 
The, 6. 

History of the United Netherlands, 

n 4 . 

History of the United States, 115, 
118. 

Holland, Dr. Josiah Gilbert, 91. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 57, 88-90, 
92. 

Home Journal, 45. 

Hopkinson, Francis, 28, 31. 

House of the Seven Gables, The, 75, 
76, 77, 92. 

Howells, William Dean, 130-131, 
135 - 

How Old Brown took Harper's 
Ferry, 125. 

Huckleberry Finn, 132. 

Hy' las, 95. 

Hymn to the Sea, 104. 

Hy-pe'ri-on, 60, 61. 

Ichabod (ik'a-bod), 82. 

Indian Burying Ground, 30. 
Inklings of Adventure, 45. 

Innocents Abroad, 132. 

Inquiry into the Freedom of the 
Will, An, 12. 

In School Days, 83, 92. 

Irving, Washington, 36-42, 56. 
Italian Journeys, 131. 

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 124. 

James, Henry, 131, 135. 

Jay, John, 26, 27. 

Jesuits in North America, The , 
117. 

John Godfrey's Fortunes, 95. 
Journal, Woolman’s, 25, 26, 31. 
Judas Maccabceus (mak-a-be'us), 

63 - 



INDEX 


I 5 8 

Judith of Bethulia (be-thu'li-a), 
128. 

Kathrina, 91. 

Kavanagh, 61. 

Knickerbocker s History of New 
York, 37, 38-40. 

Knickerbocker Magazine, 42. 
Knickerbocker School, The, 42. 

Lady of the Aroostook, The, 130. 
Lady or the Tiger, The, 134, 135. 
Lanier (lan'I-er), Sidney, 99-103, 
104. 

Lars, 94. 

Last Leaf, The, 89. 

Last of the Mohicans (mo-he'kanz), 
The, 49, 50, 56, 118. 

Late Mrs. Null, The, 134. 

Later Writers, 123. 

Leather stocking Tales, The, 50. 
Leaves of Grass, 96. 

Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The, 40, 

5 6 - 

Letters from under a Bridge, 45. 
Liberator, The, 58. 

Life and Death of John of Barne- 
veld, The, 114. 

Life and Voyages of Christopher 
Columbus, 41. 

Life of Goldsmith, 41. 

Life of Washington, 41. 

Lige't-a, 55. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 109. 

Literary History of America, Wen¬ 
dell’s, 56. 

Literature: 

Characteristics of Nineteenth 
Century, 34-5. 

Influence of Colonial, 18. 

In the North, 6. 

In the South, 3. 

Of the Colonial Period, 19. 

Of the Nineteenth Century, 119, 
136. 


Of the Revolutionary Period, 
3 i* 

London Films, 131. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 18, 
57 . 59 - 64 . 124. 

Lost Arts, The, 109. 

Lowell, James Russell, 18, 57, 
83-88, 110. 

Luck of Roaring Camp, The, 129. 
Lyceum (li-se'um), The, 58. 

McFingal, 29, 31. 

Madison, James, 26, 27. 

Magnalia Christi Americana, 9. 
Manners, 92. 

Manuscript Found in a Bottle, A, 
52 . 

Man Without a Country, The, 92. 
Marble Faun, 75, 76, 77. 

Marco Bozzaris (boz-zar'is), 44. 
Marguerite, 81. 

Marjorie Daw, 129, 135. 

Marshes of Glynn, The, 101, 104. 

“ Marvel, Ik,” 91. 

Mary Garvin, 81. 

Masque of Pandora, The, 63. 
Masque of the Gods, The, 94. 
Mather, Cotton, 7, 9, 10, 11, 19. 
Maud Muller, 81. 

May-Day, 92. 

Merry Chanter, The, 134. 

Michael Angelo (ml'ka-el an'ja-lo), 

63 - 

Miller, Joaquin (wa'ken'), 124. 
Afinister’s Charge, The , 130. 

Miss Gilbert's Career, 91. 

Mitchell, Donald Grant, 91. 
Aiontcalm and Wolfe, 117, 118. 
Mosses from an Old Alanse, 74, 
75 - 

Motley, John Lothrop, in, 113-115, 
118. . 

Mouse Trap, The, 130. 

Murders in the Rue Morgue, 55, 
Murfree, Mary N., 129. 




INDEX 


159 


My Double and How He Undid 
Me, 92. 

My Garden Acquaintance, 87, 92. 
My Playmate, 83. 

My Study Windows, 87, 92. 

Nature, 64, 66. 

Nature and Elements of Poetry, 
The, 125. 

Nauhaught, the Deacon, 80. 

New York Evening Post, The, 46. 
North American Review, 46, 84. 

O Captain / My Captain / 98, 104. 
Old English Dramatists, 8 7. 

Old Esther Dudley, 92. 

Old Ironsides, 92. 

Old Pennsylvania Farmer, The, 104. 
Old Regime (ra-zhem'), The, 117. 
One-Hoss Shay, The, 89, 92. 
Orators, The, 105. 

Oregon Trail, The, 116. 

Otis, James, 21. 

Our Country's Call, 47. 

Our Old Home, 75. 

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rock¬ 
ing, 99. 

Outre-Mer, 60, 61. 

Overland Monthly, The, 129. 

Over the Tea Cups, 90. 

Owl against Robin, 102, 104. 

Page, Thomas Nelson, 129. 

Paine, Thomas, 22. 

Pan in Love, 91. 

Pan in Wall Street, 126, 135. 
Parker, Theodore, 108. 

Parkman, Francis, in, 116-118. 
Parlor Car, The, 130. 

Parson Turrell's Legacy, 89. 
Passionate Pilgrim, A, 135. 
Pathfinder, The, 50. 

Patrolling Barnegat, 98. 

Paulding, James Kirke, 42, 43. 

Paul Revere's Ride, 62. 


Pencillings by the Way, 45. 

Phillips, Wendell, 109, no. 

Picture of St. John, 94. 

Pilot, The, 49, 50. 

Pioneers, The, 49, 50. 

Pioneers of France in the New 
World, The, 117. 

Planting of the Apple Tree, The, 47. 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 51-55, 56. 

Poet at the Breakfast Table, The, 90. 
Poetic Principle, The, 55. 

Poetry: 

Colonial, 14-18. 

Period of the Revolution, 28-31. 
Poets of America, 125. 

Politics of Old and New England, 
The, 15. 

Poor Richard's Almanac, 23, 31. 
Portrait of a Lady, The, 131. 
Prairie, The, 49, 50. 

Precaution, 48. 

Prescott, William Hickling, in, 
118. 

Prince and the Pauper, The, 132. 
Professor at the Breakfast Table, 
The, 90. 

Proud Music of the Storm, 98, 104. 
Prue and I, no. 

Psalm of Life, The, 61, 92. 
Pudd'nhead Wilson, 132. 

Rationale of Verse, The, 55. 

Raven, The, 52, 53, 56. 

Read, Thomas Buchanan, 103. 

Red Rover, The, 49, 50. 

Relief of Leyden fll'den), The, 118. 
Reliques, Bishop Percy’s, 101. 
Representative Men, 67. 

Revenge of Hamish, The, 102. 
Reveries of a Bachelor, 91. 

Rhodora, The, 68. 

Rip Van Winkle, 40, 56. 

Rise of Silas Lapham, The, 130. 
Rise of the Dutch Republic, The, 
114, 118. 




INDEX 


160 


Roba di Roma , 91. 

Rudder Grange, 134. 

St. Augustine's Ladder, 61. 

St. Nicholas, 134. 

Salmagundi , 37, 43. 

Saturday Vis/ter, The, 52. 

Scarlet Letter, The, 74, 75, 77. 
Science of English Verse, 101. 
Scribner's Magazine, 134. 

Seasons of the Year, 15, 16. 
Self-Reliance, 92. 

Sevenoaks, 91. 

Sewall (su'al), Samuel, 13, 14, 19. 
Sheridan's Ride, 103. 

Siege and Surrender of the City of 
Granada, 118. 

Sill, Edward Rowland, 124. 

Simms, William Gilmore, 51. 
Simple Cobbler of Agawam, 7. 
Sketch-Book, The, 40, 56. 

Skipper Ires on's Ride, 81. 

Smith, Captain John, 3, 19. 

Smith, F. Hopkinson, 129. 
Snow-Bound, 82, 92. 

Society and Solitude, 67. 

Song of Marion's Men, 47. 

Song of the Camp , The, 95, 104. 
Song of the Chattahoochee, 101, 104. 
Song of the Universal, 97. 

Southern Literary Messenger, The, 
52 . 

Spanish Student, 63. 

Spectator, 22. 

Spy, The, 49. 

Stanzas on Freedom, 86. 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 124, 
125-127, 135. 

Stockton, Francis Richard, 133- 

134 - 

Stoddard, Richard Henry, 104. 
Story of a Bad Boy, 127, 135. 

Story of Kennett, 95. 

Story, William Wetmore, 90. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 58. 


Strachey, William, 4. 

Suburban Sketches, 135. 

Sumner, Charles, 109, no. 

Sunrise, The, 101. 

Tales of a Traveller, 40. 
Tanglewood Tales, 75. 

Tarkington, Booth, 129. 

Taylor, Bayard, 93-95, 104. 

Telling the Bees, 81. 

Tempest, The, 5. 

Ten Times One is Ten, 92. 
Than-a-top'sis, 46, 56. 

Thoreau (tho'ro), Henry David, 
56, 69-73, 92. 

Timrod, Henry, 103. 

Titmouse, The, 92. 

To a Waterfowl, 47, 56. 

To Lexington and Concord, and 
Back to Boston, 118. 

Tom Sawyer, 132, 135. 

To the Dandelion, 86, 92. 

To the Fringed Gentian, 47. 
Transcendentalism, 57-58. 

True Grandeur of Nations, 109. 
True Relation of Virginia, A, 3. 
Trumbull, John, 28, 29, 31. 

“Twain, Mark,” 132-133, 135. 
Twice-Told Tales, 74, 75, 92. 

Two Years Before the Mast, 91. 

U'la-lume, 53. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 58. 

Under the Willows, 86, 89. 
Undiscovered Country, The, 126, 
X 3 S* 

Unitarians, io8 ; 

Venetian Life, 131. 

Victorian Poets, 125. 

Views Afoot, 93. 

Virginia Comedians, The, 51. 

Vision of Sir Launfal, The, 85, 
92. 

Visitors, 92. 



INDEX 


161 


Voiceless, The , 89. 

Voices of Freedom, 80. 

Walden, 72, 92. 

Wanted — A Man, 127. 

Ward, Elizabeth Phelps, 129. 
Ward, Nathaniel, 7. 

Washington, George, 28. 

Webster, Daniel, 105, 106-107,108, 
no. 

Week on the Concord and Merri¬ 
mack Rivers, A, 72. 

Wharton, Edith, 129. 

Whitman, Walt, 95-99, 104. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 18, 57, 
78-83, 92. 


Wieland, 50. 

Wigglesworth, Michael, 17-18. 
Wild Honeysuckle, 30, 31. 

William Wilson, 55. 

Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 42,44-45. 
Wind and the Stream, The, 47. 
Wings of the Dove, The, 131. 
Winthrop, Governor John, 6. 
Witch's Daughter, The, 81. 
Woolman, John, 25-26. 

Wreck of Rivermouth, The, 80. 
Wreck of the Hesperus, The, 92. 
Wyndham Towers, 128. 

Yetnassee, The, 51. 

Youth's Companion, 44. 



INDEX TO ADDITIONS IN THE 
REVISED EDITION 


Aaron Burr's Wooing, 149. 

Age of Innocence, The, 143. 

Albany Depot, The, 137. 

Aldington, Mrs., 135. 

Aldis, Mary, 147. 

Allen, James Lane, 135, 144. 
American, The, 138. 

Arizona, 145. 

Art of the Novelist, The, 137. 
Atlantic Monthly, The, 137. 
Awakening of Helena Richie, The, 
142. 

Ballad of Babie Bell, The, 149. 
Bayou Folk, 144. 

Bee Man of Orn, The, 149. 

Belasco, David, 145. 

Ben Jonson Entertains a Rian from 
Stratford, 131. 

Birches, 132, 149. 

Books and Men, 147. 

Boss, The, 145. 

Bostonians, The, 138. 

Brown, Alice, 144. 

Bunner, Henry C., 144. 

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 135. 
Burroughs, John, 147. 

Cable, George W., 135. 

Canterbury Pilgrims, The , 145. 
Captain Craig, 131. 

Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and 
Mrs. Aleshine, The, 141. 
Certain Delightful English Towns, 
137 - 

Chicago, 133, 149. 

Chicago Poems, 133. 

Chopin, Kate, 144. 


Churchill, Winston, 135, 143. 
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 138- 
140. 

Climbers, The, 145. 

Congo, The, 134. 

Coniston, 143. 

Connecticut Yankee at the Court of 
King Arthur, A., 139. 

Cook, George Cram, 146. 
Cornhuskers, 133. 

Country Road, The, 144. 

Craddock, Charles Egbert, 135. 
Crisis, The, 143. 

Crothers, Samuel McChord, 147. 

Daisy Miller, 138. 

Davis, Richard Harding, 144. 
Death of Eve, The, 130. 

Deland, Margaret, 135, 142, 149. 
Dome of Many Colored Glass, A, 
* 35 - 

Doorstep Acquaintances, 149. 
Drama, The, 145. 

Dr. Lavendar's People, 142. 

Essays, Writers of, 147. 

Ethan Frome, 143. 

Europeans, The, 138. 

Fellow Citizens, 149. 

Fenris the Wolf, 145. 

Fire Bringer, The , 130. 

Fireman s Ball, The, 134, 149. 
Fisherman s Luck, 148. 

Fitch, Clyde, 145. 

Flajne and Shadow, 134. 

Fletcher, John Gould, 135. 

Flute and Violin, 144. 


162 



INDEX 


163 


Fog, 149. 

Fox, Jr., John, 135. 

Freeman, Mary Wilkins, 1315, 144. 
French, Alice, 144. 

Frost, Robert, 132. 

Fruit of the Tree, The, 143. 

Gallagher, 144. 

Garland, Hamlin, 143. 

Gillette, William, 145. 

Girl of the Golden West, The, 145. 
Glaspell, Susan, 146. 

Gloucester Moors, 139, 149. 

Golden Bowl, The, 138. 

Good Friday Night, 130. 

Great Adventure of Max Breuck, 
The, 135, 149. 

Great Divide, The, 145. 

Hand of Lincoln, The, 149. 

Happy Half Century, A, 147. 

Harris, Joel Chandler, 141-142, 
149- 

Hart e, Francis Bret, 136. 

Harvest Moon, 131. 

Hazard of New Fortunes, A, 137. 
Hebe, 149. 

Held by the Enemy, 145. 

Herne, James A., 145. 

Heroines of Fiction, 137. 

House of Mirth, The, 142. 

Howard, Bronson, 145. 

Howells, William Dean, 136, 149. 
Huckleberry Finn, 139. 

Huinble Romance, A, 144. 

/ Heard Immanuel Singing, 134. 
Imagists, The, 134, 135. 

Innocents Abroad, 139. 

In Our Convent Days, 147. 

Inside of the Cup, The, 143. 

In the Zone, 146. 

Iron Woman, The, 142. 

Isaac and Archibald, 149. 

Italian Jourtieys, 137. 


James, Henry, 138, 149. 

Jeanne d'Arc, 145. 

Killers, 133. 

King, Grace, 144, 

Knitters in the Sun, 144. 

Lady, A, 135. 

Lady of the Aroostook, The, 137. 
Lady or the Tiger, The, 140, 149. 
Late Mrs. Null, The, 141. 

Later Poets, 129. 

Lindsay, Nicholas Vachel, 134, 149. 
Little Garden, The, 149. 

Little Rivers, 148. 

Little Theater, 146. 

Little Theater Movement, The, 
146. 

London Films, 137. 

Lowell, Amy, 135, 149. 

Luck of Roaring Catnp, The, 136. 

MacKaye, Percy, 145, 146. 

Main- Traveled Roads, 144. 

Man against the Sky, The, 131. 
Marjorie Daw, 129, 149. 

Marks, Jeannette, 146. 

Marks, Josephine Preston Peabody, 

I3L 145- 

Masque of Judgment, The, 130. 
Masters, Edgar Lee, 132, 133, 149. 
Merry Chanter, The, 141. 

Merry, Merry Cuckoo, The, 146. 
Mingo and Other Stories, 142. 
Minister's Charge, The, 137. 

Mitch Miller, 133, 149. 

Money, 147. 

Monsieur Motte, 144. 

Moody, William Vaughn, 130, I45 ( 
149- 

More, Paul Elmer, 148. 

Mountain Interval, 132. 

Mountains of California, The, 147. 
Mouse Trap, The, 137. 

Mrs. Pat and the Law, 146. 



164 


INDEX 


Muir, John, 147. 

Murfree, Mary N., 135. 

Music , 135. 

My First Summer in the Sierra, 
148. 

New England Nun and Other 
Stories, A, 144. 

Nights with Uncle Remus, 142, 149. 
North of Boston, 132. 

Ode in Time of Hesitation, 130. 

Old Chester Tales, 142, 149. 

Old Man's Winter Night, An, 149. 
O’Neill, Eugene G., 146. 

Other Main-Traveled Roads, 144. 
Overland Monthly, The, 136. 

Page, Thomas Nelson, 135. 

Pan in Wall Street, 149. 

Pardoner's Wallet, The, 147. 
Parlor Car, The, 137. 

Passionate Pilgrim, A, 149. 
Pleasures of an Absentee Landlord, 
The, 147. 

Points of Friction, 147. 

Portrait of a Lady, The, 138. 
Prairie Folks, 144. 

Prince and the Pauper, The, 139. 
Provincetown Players, 146. 
Pudd'nhead Wilson, 139. 

Repplier, Agnes, 147. 

Richard Carvel, 143. 

Rise of Silas Lapham, The, 137. 
Road Hymn for the Start, 130. 
Robinson, Edwin A., 131, 149. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 131. 

Rose of the Rancho, The, 145. 
Rudder Grange, 140. 

Salvation Nell, 145. 

Sam Average, 146. 

Sanctuary, a Bird Masque, 146. 
Sandburg, Carl, 133, 149. 


Scribner's Magazine, 140. 
Shelburne Essays, 148. 

Sheldon, Edward, 145. 

Shenandoah, 145. 

Shore Acres, 145. 

Short Sixes, 144. 

Short Story, The, 143. 

Singing Leaves, The, 131. 

Singing Man, The, 131. 

Smith, F. Hopkinson, 135. 

Soldier Fallen in the Philippines, A, 
130, 149. 

Spoon River Anthology, The, 132, 
149. 

Steel and Smoke, 133. 

St. Nicholas, 140. 

Stockton, Francis Richard, 140- 
141, 149. 

Story of a Bad Boy, 149. 

Strayed Prohibitionist, The, 147. 
Suppressed Desires, 146. 

Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, 135. 

Tales of a Time and Place, 144. 
Tarkington, Booth, 135. 

Teasdale, Sara, 134. 

Thomas, Augustus, 145. 

Tiverton Tales, 144. 

Tom Sawyer, 139, 149. 

Town Down the River, The, 131. 
Toy Theater, 146. 

“ Twain, Mark,” 138-140, 149. 

Uncle Remus atid His Friends, 142. 
Uncle Remus, His Songs and His 
Sayings, 142. 

Undiscovered Country, The, 149. 

Van Bibber and Others, 144. 

Van Dyke, Henry, 148. 

Venetian Life, 137. 

Vers libre, 135, 133. 

Wake Robin, 147. 

Ward, Elizabeth Phelps, 135. 



INDEX 


Washington Square Players, 146. 
Ways of Nature, 147. 

Wharton, Edith, 135, 142. 

White and Green, 135. 

Whitman, Walt, 129. 


Whigs of the Dove, The, 138. 
Witching Hour, The, 145. 
Woman Enthroned, 147. 


Xingu, 142. 







Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 
































































































































































































































































- 




















































































































































































































































































LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0 017 165 758 1 































































